Framework of understanding for BIM adoption in a BIM infant industry : case of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Being a technological innovation with ability to address many of the problems in the construction industry, Building Information Modelling (BIM) has got significant attention both in academia and in practice. Proper strategizing of BIM adoption by both adopters and supporting agents is crucial for success. In this, inability to formulate structured understanding of BIM adoption decision context was found a limitation, and this study aimed to develop a framework of understanding of BIM adoption decision in a context of BIM infant industry taking Sri Lanka as a case. Affordances concept was utilized to conceptualize wide knowledge in BIM adoption into one framework. Introduced in ecological psychology, affordances are the potential uses or actions that an object or environment offers to a user. It is a versatile concept that could effectively represent not only what an adopter perceives and expects from BIM implementation, but also, what the adopter in fact can achieve from it. With the assertion that there is a generalizable underlying framework of BIM adoption decision that can be observed through socially constructed experience it caused, the study took a Retroductive Approach to theory with Critical Realism research philosophy. Data was collected through semi-structures interviews with nine participants purposively selected to maximize the breadth and depth of data. After each interview, an iterative inductive and deductive data analysis process was followed by developing thick narratives and qualitatively validating the developing framework with data thus far. Findings present the Affordance-led Framework of Understanding that can effectively capture the BIM adoption decision context in a BIM infant industry and offer a deeper contextualized view of BIM adoption decision that was absent in current innovation studies. Study findings contribute pertinent affordances as a new concept for which an equivalent concept or an explanation was not found either in behavioural or innovation adoption theories. While the framework supports the strategizing of BIM adoption, it has shown potential use in many other contexts even outside of construction. Keywords: Building Information Modelling, BIM, BIM Infant Industry, innovation, adoption