Change management practices for adopting new technologies in the design and construction industry

Abstract

The architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry has often been accused of being slow to adopt change. Yet the breadth of available technology solutions in the modern AEC industry continues to grow. Companies therefore must be adept at organizational change management; otherwise, the full benefits of technology solutions may never be realized when a company fails to achieve successful change adoption. The objective of this study was to identify the relationships between specific change management practices and organizational adoption of new technology solutions. An industry-wide approach was taken, wherein an online survey methodology was used to collect 167 cases of organization-wide change from AEC firms across the United States and Canada. The method of analysis included a correlation analysis between change management practices and change adoption. Reliability testing and principal components analysis were used to extract a single construct measure of change adoption. Rank-based nonparametric testing investigated if there are statistically significant differences between different groups of participants and technologies. Results include a rank-order of specific change management practices most associated with successful technology adoption. Change-agent effectiveness, measured benchmarks, realistic timeframe, and communicated benefits are the four change management practices that had the strongest association strength with successful change adoption. The discussion addresses how these leading change management practices compare with previous literature. Also, it was found that organization type and job position were correlated with the levels of change-adoption success compared to other listed factors. This study contributes an industry-wide view of change management practices within the context of technology-based change adoption and may assist practitioners to better manage technology adoptions in their organizations.

Stagewise Overview of Issues Influencing Organizational Technology Adoption and Use

“…However, the obstacles are not clearly distinguished and the mechanism of adjusting the culture and strategy is rather abstract. In other studies, internal upper management support was found to a prominent factor (Chung and Choi, 2018 ; Lu et al, 2018 ; Mohtaramzadeh et al, 2018 ; Maali et al, 2020 ; Ukobitz, 2020 ). Furthermore, awareness of the state of affairs in the organization's external environment was found to be essential (Mohtaramzadeh et al, 2018 ; Vaishnavi et al, 2019 ).…”

“…Organizational changes could be due to merging and acquisition, or cultural, structural, procedural, and technological changes (Smith, 2002 ). Organizational change management is about taking action toward a defined state through practices that are different from the routine practices (Burnes, 2009 ; Maali et al, 2020 ) to reach a goal. The goal of technology change is to offer better products and services through replacing the existing with the new technology (Aremu et al, 2019 ).…”

“…The extent to which an organization is able to adapt to required changes is referred to as organizational readiness. With regard to technology changes, readiness encompasses technological infrastructure, knowledge, (human) resources, and managerial commitment to change, and the extent of readiness is a precursor to successful organizational change management (Han et al, 2020 ; Maali et al, 2020 ). Therefore, each of the factors that contribute to readiness deserves attention.…”

“…There was no clear stagewise division, but the importance of timing was indicated by emphasizing implementation in a timely manner. With regard to time, having a realistic timeframe that accounts for the unpredictable obstacles during the process was noted, and the need to adjust workloads at a given time was indicated (Maali et al, 2020 ).…”

“…Other studies have pointed out the importance of change agents and influential and senior users (Keyworth et al, 2018 ; Molino et al, 2020 ) in forming normative pressure and influencing the perceptions of other users (De Benedictis et al, 2020 ). Communicating the reasons for change and provision of training were also mentioned as important facilitators of technology adoption (Maali et al, 2020 ; Molino et al, 2020 ). The importance of focusing on the users and users' beliefs as a facilitator of adoption (Mohammed et al, 2018 ) was mentioned in the literature review by El Hamdi and Abouabdellah ( 2018 ).…”