E-readiness in construction : readiness of UK construction organisations

Lou, ECW

Abstract

In today's economic climate, competitive advantage can be achieved by focusing on
issues such as providing high quality services and products with minimal cost, having
the flexibility to predict and respond to market needs, or through the efficient
management of resources. With unprecedented levels of technological change now
increasingly being used as a means through which competitive advantage can be
leveraged. However, investments in IT-based business systems have not realised their
full potential, and the worldwide cost of IT failure could account to US$6.2 trillion
per year; and failure stories were reported by Alshawi, Burns, Business Wire and
Krigsman. The unavailability of a suitable measurement, assessment or benchmark to
measure and identify the organisation's readiness to adopt IT for the construction
industry does not help.
This research takes the position of e-readiness 'as a measure of the degree to which an
organisation may be ready, prepared or willing to obtain benefits which arise from the
digital economy'. To shape the framework, literature reviews and a scoping study
questionnaire were used in this research investigation for the discovery and building
of this framework. This led to the discovery of key indicators (KI) as identified by
industry experts. Three case studies were put in place for data collection and the
development of the framework - resulting to the discovery of five KIs and twentyfive
sub-key factors (SKI). To help organisations to implement the framework, a
scoring system and sample cases were proposed in the Final Framework - which was
validated by academic and industry experts. The resulting ERiC framework provides
an original solution to assessing the e-readiness of organisations to adopt IT.
The ERiC framework entails leadership and empowerment, business and information
process, IT sharability/interoperability, change management, and
policy/strategy/vision as the KI. The leadership and Empowerment KI describes the
IT vision, involvement, inspiration, integrity and improvement as its SKIs; while the business and information process KI lists standardisation, automation, availability,
integration and interchange as SKIs. Uptake, standards, availability, skills and legal
framework are SKIs for the IT sharability/interoperability KI; while the change
management KI consist of strategic framework, implementation, executive
sponsorship, business practices and communication as SKIs. The
policy/strategy/vision KI has collaboration, identification, dissemination,
empowerment and future technologies as SKIs.
In the attempt to assist organisation to be e-ready, each SKI is redefined into a 5-level
maturity-styled statements and sample cases. Each case is related to construction and
IT applications. The proposed scoring system has the flexibility to implement
weightings to selected KIs - this will enable users the ability to prioritise factors as
required by the organisation. The framework will provide an overall e-readiness score
of the organisation and identify gaps in the key indicators and sub-key indicators.

Citation

Lou, E. E-readiness in construction : readiness of UK construction organisations. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Jul 28, 2021
• Award Date: Aug 1, 2012