BIM Adoption: A Case of Institutional Pressures and Top Management Support

Abstract

The influence of institutional context on organizations to systemically change and adopt new technologies has so far received little attention in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. This study investigates the relationships between various institutional pressures, top management support, and the AEC organizational adoption level of building information modeling (BIM). The data were gathered through a survey of 186 BIM managers of AEC organizations in the United States, and the partial least-squares structural equation method (PLS-SEM) was applied to test the research hypotheses. The results show that normative pressure is the prominent institutional pressure affecting the level of BIM adoption in all types of AEC organizations. However, the degree at which and the path through which normative pressures work in these organizations vary based on their business type. For architecture and engineering organizations, the influence of institutional pressures on the organizational level of BIM adoption is mediated through the organization’s top management support. However, in contracting organizations, normative pressure and top management support have direct independent effects on the level of BIM adoption. These findings contribute to construction management knowledge by empirically supporting the idea that institutional pressures can be a powerful means to make systemic change to diffuse BIM in the AEC industry.