What is Collaborative Competencies

Collaboration is a key challenge in the construction sector. While many innovative solutions have been explored, collaboration is persistently hampered by barriers such as the dominance of short-term project-based work and the geographical dispersion of actors. The chapter presents an approach for strengthening collaborative capacity in the construction industry. Building collaborative capacity requires the systematic identification, development, and assessment of specific knowledge, skill, and behavioural competencies. To address the challenge of identification, the authors propose 133 competencies based on a collaborative practice model developed from six qualitative case studies. To address the challenge of development, the authors propose the mobilization of simulation-based training (SBT) grounded in detailed scenarios linked to their model. Finally, for the challenge of assessment, the researchers propose an assessment instrument and a novel collaborative practice index. The authors also provide discussions on digitizing the SBT as part of future work.