Linking the Motivations and Practices of Design Organizations to Implement Building Information Modeling in Construction Projects: Empirical Study in China

Drawing on institutional theory and the innovation diffusion literature, this paper investigates how design organizations' building information modeling (BIM) implementation practices in construction projects are associated with their BIM implementation motivations and related project contextual factors. These associations are empirically tested with survey data collected from BIM-based construction projects in China, and the examined BIM implementation motivations include image motives, reactive motives, project-based economic motives, and cross-project economic motives. Hierarchical regression analysis results illustrate that design organizations' project BIM implementation practices are significantly impacted by project contextual factors such as client/owner support, and that after controlling for the project contextual factors the higher weights of project-based economic motives and image motives are both significantly associated with higher levels of BIM implementation. By contrast, reactive motives and cross-project economic motives are illustrated to be non-significantly associated with subsequent implementation practices. The findings contribute to deepened understandings of how BIM is tactically implemented by design organizations and why BIM implementation practices in different contexts turn out to be heterogeneous.