6. Conclusions
Grounded in institutional theory and the innovation diffusion literature, this paper developed and tested a model categorising the motivations of designers and general contractors to implement BIM in construction projects, and investigated how different categories of motivations are associated with organisational BIM capability as well as other contextual factors. The results of factor analysis with project-based survey data collected from 188 designers and general contractors on the Chinese mainland provide clear support for the theoretically developed motivation model, in which motivations for implementing BIM in construction projects are classified into four categories: image motives, reactive motives, project-based economic motives, and cross-project economic motives. Comparisons of the categorised motivations suggest that image motives and cross-project economic motives are currently the strongest reasons for designers and general contractors to implement BIM in construction projects, and that social motivations and economic motivations underlying BIM implementation do not necessarily preclude each other as conventional wisdom might indicate. Results of hierarchical regressions support the hypotheses on the positive association between project-based economic motives and BIM capability, and on the non-significant association between image motives and BIM capability. However, hypotheses on the associations between BIM capability and the two other motivation variables are not supported. While illustrating no significant difference in BIM implementation motivations between designers and general contractors, hierarchical regression results further reveal that both project type and nature are significantly associated with project-based economic motives, and that project organisations from state-owned corporations generally have stronger image motives and cross-project economic motives to implement BIM than their counterparts from other types of corporations. The findings could help to develop a more comprehensive understanding of the reasons why construction organisations implement BIM in construction projects and provide a more dynamic picture of how BIM implementation motivations may vary as organisational contexts change. Through providing evidence that the motivations of project participants to implement BIM under the impacts of institutional pressures are distinctly multidimensional and dynamic, the findings could also help to partly reconcile the discordant findings on innovation implementation reasons in the extant construction innovation literature and to deepen the understanding of the complex relationship between innovation implementation activities and external institutional environments.
