Unorchestrated Symphony: the Case of Inter- Organizational Collaboration in Digital Construction Design

This paper presents the findings from a study of collaborative work among design professionals in virtual modeling for building construction. The research is based on interviews conducted with members from various design professions. We analyzed a building project comprising a network of organizations interrelated by their information systems, to gain a better understanding of collaborative design based on Building Information Modeling (BIM). The findings suggest that the actors did not fully exploit the capability of BIM to transform and improve project communication, as they did not adjust the inter-organizational processes according to the BIM technology. Instead of effective collaboration, we found a system of “automation islands.” To achieve full business-process integration, the actors would need to establish a shared organizing vision for BIM. This organizing vision needs to align inter-organizational processes and the functionality of BIM. Our findings illustrate weaknesses in existing practice and highlight possible improvements.