E-readiness in construction : readiness of UK construction organisations

In today's economic climate, competitive advantage can be achieved by focusing onissues such as providing high quality services and products with minimal cost, havingthe flexibility to predict and respond to market needs, or through the efficientmanagement of resources. With unprecedented levels of technological change nowincreasingly being used as a means through which competitive advantage can beleveraged. However, investments in IT-based business systems have not realised theirfull potential, and the worldwide cost of IT failure could account to US$6.2 trillionper year; and failure stories were reported by Alshawi, Burns, Business Wire andKrigsman. The unavailability of a suitable measurement, assessment or benchmark tomeasure and identify the organisation's readiness to adopt IT for the constructionindustry does not help.This research takes the position of e-readiness 'as a measure of the degree to which anorganisation may be ready, prepared or willing to obtain benefits which arise from thedigital economy'. To shape the framework, literature reviews and a scoping studyquestionnaire were used in this research investigation for the discovery and buildingof this framework. This led to the discovery of key indicators (KI) as identified byindustry experts. Three case studies were put in place for data collection and thedevelopment of the framework - resulting to the discovery of five KIs and twentyfivesub-key factors (SKI). To help organisations to implement the framework, ascoring system and sample cases were proposed in the Final Framework - which wasvalidated by academic and industry experts. The resulting ERiC framework providesan original solution to assessing the e-readiness of organisations to adopt IT.The ERiC framework entails leadership and empowerment, business and informationprocess, IT sharability/interoperability, change management, andpolicy/strategy/vision as the KI. The leadership and Empowerment KI describes theIT 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 legalframework are SKIs for the IT sharability/interoperability KI; while the changemanagement KI consist of strategic framework, implementation, executivesponsorship, business practices and communication as SKIs. Thepolicy/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-levelmaturity-styled statements and sample cases. Each case is related to construction andIT applications. The proposed scoring system has the flexibility to implementweightings to selected KIs - this will enable users the ability to prioritise factors asrequired by the organisation. The framework will provide an overall e-readiness scoreof the organisation and identify gaps in the key indicators and sub-key indicators.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral (Level 8)

Year dc:date.issued

2012

Author dc:creator

• Lou, ECW

Language dc:language

en

Identifier

oai:salford-repository.worktribe.com:1338240

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:salford-repository.worktribe.com:1338240