Overview of the Australia-based studies on project alliancing

In recent years, scholars, practitioners and government agencies have paid increasing attention to project alliancing. Despite the fact that a number of studies have been undertaken to date, a comprehensive review of the previous studies on project alliancing has not appeared. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of previous Australia-based studies on the theory and practice of project alliancing and foresee future research directions. The growing literature on project alliancing has contributed to our understanding of this interorganizational cooperative relationship and unique project delivery method. However, previous studies, which are limited by not incorporating economic explanations, have mainly been concerned with alliancing processes and techniques. Moreover, there is a tendency within the studies to focus on successful alliancing projects. There remains a plenty of scope for further development. We, therefore, propose that Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) might be an appropriate theoretical framework to explain project alliancing concepts, and examine the significant changes of governance mechanism and management strategies for alliancing projects, and the implications of such changes for projects and involved organizations.