Barriers and Facilitators for BIM Use among Swedish Medium-Sized Contractors - 'We Wait until Someone Tells Us to Use It'

Abstract

The pace of diffusion of BIM (Building Information Modelling) use is considered to increase with governmental initiatives in which public clients in countries like Finland, Singapore, United Kingdom, and Sweden begin requiring BIM as a part of the project delivery. Currently, larger contractor firms use BIM to a certain extent. However, BIM use by mid-sized contractor firms (that is, firms with 50 – 500 employees that can successfully compete with larger contractors on projects costing a maximum of 50 million Euros) is relatively unknown. Hence, the aim of the paper is to explore current use and perceived constraints and driving forces of BIM-implementation with respect to mid-sized contractors. A mixed method approach was applied, and data was collected through an interview study and a survey involving chief executive officers or their closest sub-ordinates in mid-sized contractor firms in Sweden. The survey was based on a technology-, organization-, and environment framework that is used in information systems research to study the use of inter-organizational information systems. The total population of firms in the survey corresponded to 104. The study presented the preliminary results based on 32 answers (with a 31 percent response rate).

Keywords: Building Information Modeling, BIM; adoption; use; implementation; medium-sized contractors, Sweden

JEL Classification: L74, M11, M15, 014, 031