Abstract
Collaborative practices (CP) in recent times have emerged as a significant requirement and a viable approach to overcome the growing changing business environment and adversarial nature of construction supply chain in construction project delivery globally. This is partly due to the propensity of CP for improving performance and enhancing competitiveness by responding to the changing environment in construction. Even though CP has been rigorously pursued in many advanced areas of the construction industry, its implementation and nature of practices required in the South African construction industry (SACI) are relatively unknown. Additionally, there is a lack of consensus among stakeholders and practitioners on the nature of CP to engender the needed performance towards success in infrastructural delivery in South Africa. By adopting a qualitative design using structured interviews with 31 participants and convergence analysis of multiple case studies, the study revealed on site operational governance and the nature of operational structures and integration strategies adopted for supply chain contributors as the main collaborative practices in the SACI. These findings give empirical credence to the nature of collaborative practices necessary in construction project delivery in South Africa and thus offer practical and theoretical implications for the industry.