Exploring Digital Collaboration across Knowledge Boundaries: A Case Study of the BIM-Enabled Construction Project

Project collaboration, particularly in the field of Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC), involves a complex process primarily driven by bridging knowledge boundaries between various stakeholders from varying organisational and disciplinary backgrounds. Through digitalisation in the AEC industry, digital technologies, such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), are being implemented to varying degrees within organisations and used by individuals for facilitating construction project management. Recent research taking a practice-based approach to studying digital technology-enabled collaboration provides insights into how digital collaboration may occur in cross-boundary collaborations. Most existing studies, however, have mainly focused on the role of digital technology in mediating individual collaborative practice which lacks a holistic understanding of the contextual conditions shaping the roles of digital technology during the entire collaboration process. Such a perspective could consider the interplay between organisational, cultural, and other contextual dimensions and digital technology-enabled knowledge practice in collaboration.

By building on the practice-based approach and incorporating the contextual dimensions mentioned above, this research aims to explore how collaboration occurs across knowledge boundaries in BIM-enabled construction projects from different levels. As part of this objective, the study examines three sub-questions: 1) How are collaborative activities across knowledge boundaries organised in the construction project? 2) How is BIM technology implemented and used to enable these collaborative activities? 3) How does the arrangement of collaborative activities shape BIM implementation and use over time?

To achieve this aim, this research adopts a qualitative, interpretative, embedded case study as the methodology. The embedded case is the BIM technology-enabled collaborative construction project comprising four types of major stakeholders: the owner organisation, design organisation, construction organisation, and sub-contractor organisation. Data was collected through multiple resources, with semi-structured interviews being the primary data source supported by data from field observations and document analyses. Using reflexive thematic analysis, data were analysed at three levels: the individuals' daily use of BIM technology for cross-boundary collaboration; the organisation’s strategic implementation of BIM technology; and the situated practice and experience at the construction project level.

4 The multi-level analysis reveals three dimensions of the phenomenon of BIM-enabled crossboundary collaboration namely, the configuration of collaborative activities, the role of BIM technology, and the contextual conditions of BIM collaboration. It was found that collaborative activities are co-configured by individuals' motivation and work relations, the organisation’s digital innovation strategy, and project-based collaboration. BIM technology was found to play a multifaceted role evolving from enabling individual practice, to influencing the organisations' digital transformation processes, and perceived changes to project goals. Further, within the dimension of contextual conditions of BIM collaboration, we observed temporal changes based on patterns of BIM use centred on digital artefacts, strategic adoption of digital innovation-driven BIM, and stage-based project management, which may influence the boundaries of BIM collaboration at different levels.

This research builds a practice-based and contextual-related understanding of the BIM-enabled construction project. It enhances the theoretical understanding of digital collaboration across boundaries at individual and collective levels by conceptualising these as dynamic relationships between different activity systems and identifying boundary work mechanisms at different levels. The adopted embedded case study and multi-level data analysis also introduce an innovative qualitative research design based on activity theory that enhances dominant extant single-level analyses in the literature. In addition, the study unpacks the black box of BIM technology by detailing its roles in the individual's practice, organisational digital innovation strategies, and project lifecycle-based collaborations, and the evolutionary nature and mediating effect of the roles. Finally, the study contributes to the understanding of the temporal and permeable conditions of the context for BIM collaboration. It provides practitioners with a comprehensive understanding of how organisational digital innovation strategies and project management objectives combine with BIM-enabled practice to shape BIM-enabled project collaborations.