ABSTRACT
Due to the complex nature and characteristics of the industry, adversarial attitudes are usually involved and therefore, new ways in carrying out management processes to attain an improved performance and a qualitative project delivery in the industry is necessary. Partnering is a set of strategic action that deliver marked improvements in construction performance and project success will be attained more readily than the other traditional management approaches. The determination of the Prospect of Partnering as a Procurement method in the Nigerian Construction Industry was achieved by investigating the awareness, applicability, benefits and challenges of partnering as a procurement method. Structured questionnaire was administered and analyzed by percentage using Statistical Product for Social Sciences (SPSS) and a Relative Importance Index (RII) was used for ranking. Tables and charts were subsequently used to express the results as descriptive presentations. Inferences were made from the analysis carried out and high percentage responses were indicated on the level of awareness of partnering in the industry with 90.0%, 91.7%, and 77.0% as indicated by the Clients, Contractors and Consultants respectively. On the level of applicability however, there was little indication of just 5.0% and 6.8% from the Contractors and Consultants respectively, but high percentage response was indicated for the Clients with a percentage response of 87.9%. On the most beneficial factor in implementing partnering in the Nigerian Construction Industry, „Achieving better buidability?, „reduction in the rate of litigation? and „better opportunity for innovation and value engineering? were identified with RII values of 0.96, 0.76 and 0.86 as seen by the clients, contractors and consultants respectively. On the challenges of implementing partnering, both the clients and contractors share the same view noting that „inadequate knowledge and skills of partnering processes viii pose the highest challenge with a very high RII value of 1.0. However, the consultants viewed „Corruption? also with a very high RII value of 0.99 as the most challenging factor this procurement method. It is recommended that both the consultants and the contractors should adopt partnering as a procurement method especially for large projects in order to gain the benefits of such procurement process.