Generating value in program alliances: the value of dialogue in large-scale infrastructure projects

Abstract

Collaboration forms the backbone of program alliances, with the ‘pain-gain share’ regime acting as an incentive to engender behaviours that foster teamwork and trusting relationships to flourish. While dialogue within and between parties in a program alliance has been identified as key to establishing collaboration and trust, there is limited understanding of how it is engendered and maintained to ensure the delivery of superior project outcomes. In filling this void, our paper aims to address the following research question: How does the value of dialogue influence effective collaboration in program alliances? A sense-making lens is adopted to garner an understanding of the value of effective dialogue in two program alliance infrastructure projects. The value and power of dialogue are examined by addressing a recurring problem that negatively impacted the performance of the alliances and their projects: rework. We show that effective dialogue mitigated rework as participants had a shared purpose. Enacting dialogue helped shape the program alliances’ culture and foster an environment where people felt safe to ‘speak up’. This paper’s contributions are 2-fold as we: (1) unearth new value-laden principles to support dialogue in program alliances; and (2) provide empirical evidence for practitioners to help them understand the value of dialogue in delivering a program of infrastructure projects using an alliance delivery strategy.