Strategies to Achieve High Adoption of Organizational Change Initiatives within the AEC Industry

Abstract

Organizations must be adept at managing the adoption of change initiatives. However, it is argued that more than half of change adoption efforts fail to reach their objectives. This study modeled the relationships between six change management strategies and three identified levels of change adoption outcomes (unsuccessful, moderately successful, and very successful). A total of 633 cases of organizational change adoption were collected from architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) firms across the US and Canada, of which almost half of the cases represent the adoption of digital technologies. Multinomial logistic regression analyses showed that at least five change management strategies must be used effectively in combination to avoid failed change adoption outcomes. Very successful adoption cases have used two strategies (change agents and realistic timeframe) in a highly effective manner. This study contributes to the body of knowledge of management in engineering by defining three levels of change adoption outcomes and identifying the most effective change management strategies among the different levels.