An Investigation of the Latent Barriers to BIM Adoption and Development

The building information modeling (BIM) has been under aggressive promotion by governments throughout the world. By contrast, the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry shows reluctance to adopt BIM in its projects. Two questions are immediate: why the market hesitates with BIM adoption; and whether the governmental compulsory BIM implementation is regarded as reasonable. Previous literature is in-depth but is distant from the market, which have failed in analyzing the basic reasons lying behind. This study aims to provide an alternative explanation. Based on the assumption that any market activity is to maximize economic profits, this study concluded that (1) since BIM adoption involves opportunity costs, stakeholders would choose to adopt BIM at the market-determined time; (2) due to the social costs/benefits of using BIM, the market-determined timing of BIM adoption tends to be delayed, the governments’ enforcing BIM hence is reasonable; and (3) the compulsory requirements on clarifications of the responsibilities and the corresponding benefits among AEC disciplines reinforces the importance of governments in promoting BIM implementation.