Big Data Adoption in the Chinese Construction Industry: Status Quo, Drivers, Challenges, and Strategies

Under the influence of pervasive digital revolution, the accessibility and analysis of ‘big data’ can provide useful insights and help various industries evolve. Despite the popularity of big data, the construction industry is lagging behind other industries in adopting big data technologies. This paper fills the knowledge gap by examining the status quo of big data adoption in companies with different sizes and roles, as well as that in projects with different types, and ascertaining the drivers for and challenges in adopting big data. This paper employed a structured questionnaire survey and statistical analyses to investigate the significance of factors influencing the drivers, challenges, and enhancement strategies of big data adoption, and validated the results with post-study interviews with construction professionals. The results show that big data adoption in the construction industry is affected by the size of companies and the work experience of their employees. Technology advancement, competitiveness, and government plan and policy initiatives are identified as the top three drivers of big data adoption in the construction sector. Moreover, a lack of appropriate supporting systems, difficulties in data collection, and the shortage of knowledge and experience are found to be the major challenges in big data adoption. Finally, the identified top three strategies for overcoming these challenges and promoting big data adoption are ‘clear organization structure’, ‘government incentives’, and ‘the training of information technology (IT) personnel’. The paper suggests the necessity of creating differentiated strategies for big data adoption for companies with different scales and roles, and helps provide useful insights for policy-makers in promoting big data applications.