Attitudinal, behavioural, and cultural impacts on e-business use in a project team: a case study

Maximum benefit from Information and Communication Technology (ICT) investment is widely believed to arise from its collaborative use across construction project teams. Ideally this integrates supply chain activities using various e-business strategies centred on a Building Information Model (BIM), used from the earliest stages of project feasibility, through design and construction phases onward into operation and decommissioning. Unfortunately this rarely eventuates, and this has less to do with technological compatibility and more to do with human interactions. A recently completed doctoral study has found evidence that boundedly rational decision-making behaviour arises out of individual decision-makers’ attitudes which in turn affects the likelihood of ICT/BIM adoption across a project team. Another doctoral study has shown the link between individual attitudes, the formation of project team culture and it's receptiveness to ICT/BIM integration. This paper presents meta-analysis of data common to both studies of a particular Temporary Project Organisation (TPO) associated with the design and construction of a project. It investigates the link between the individual attitude formation of key project personalities and their subsequent ICT decision-making behaviour, resulting in the formation of a differentiated project team culture, and sub-optimal BIM-enabled e-business. It concludes that individuals’ cultural traits are portable entities, partially evolved through personal experience, and partially developed out of interaction with others, and these traits will ‘infect’ the current TPO in both positive and negative ways.