It Innovation within the Construction Organisation

Whilst sophisticated IT systems are being investigated and evaluated by academics, many construction organisations are still failing to implement and use IT to their strategic advantage. To address this, organisational rather than technical issues are the focus of this paper. The process by which emerging technologies can be introduced into construction organisations is explored. The case study method was used to study IT implementation within a major house-building company. The company studied set out to introduce a virtual reality system. This was to be used for internal design review by inter-disciplinary teams within the company’s regional offices. In this paper system development and implementation within the organisation are described. The findings provide insight into the process of change, the constraints that inhibit IT implementation and the relationship between new technology and work organisation within construction organisations. They suggest that (1) user-developer communication may be critical for the successful implementation of non-diffused innovations in the construction industry and (2) successful uptake of IT requires both strategic decision-making by top management and decisionmaking by technical managers.