Contagion of BIM Implementation Practices in Interproject Networks: An Empirical Study in China

While the significant role of external environments in shaping the implementation of building information modeling (BIM) as a systemic innovation in construction projects has been increasingly acknowledged, little is known about how heterogeneous projects concretely interact with each other to facilitate or inhibit the advancement of BIM implementation practices in the "conservative" construction industry. Drawing on a social contagion perspective, this study explores how the contagion effects through participant- and attribute-based ties among construction projects differently impact project-level BIM implementation practices via the interproject learning and competition processes. The proposed propositions are tested using an industry-wide longitudinal data set of BIM-based construction projects within the construction industry in Shanghai, China. After controlling for the effects of related organizational and project characteristics, the results show that, compared with the attribute-based contagion effects, which are primarily related to the interproject competition process, the participant-based contagion effects primarily related to the interproject learning process generally play more substantial roles in impacting project-level BIM implementation practices within interproject networks. The results further provide evidence that the participant-based contagion through the ties of project owners is more substantial than that through the ties of project contractors, and that the magnitude of the attribute-based contagion varies in different sizes and types of projects. As an exploratory effort of using longitudinal data to empirically characterize how project-level BIM implementation practices are contagious through different types of interproject ties from a social contagion perspective, this study contributes to a deepened understanding of how heterogeneous construction projects interact with each other through interproject learning and competition processes to facilitate or inhibit the advancement of innovative practices in the industry. The findings reinforce the need to regard BIM implementation practices in construction projects as complexly socialized activities and provide insights for policymakers and practitioners in developing strategies to facilitate the in-depth implementations of BIM and related innovations in the "conservative" project-based construction industry.