Abstract
Digital transformations in the built environment address inefficiencies and sustainability issues in the building lifecycle. Accordingly, electronic procurement systems (EPSs) have benefits that improve the economic, environmental and social initiatives for sustainable construction. However, the slow rate of EPSs uptake evinces the need for strategic approaches towards their widespread implementation. Scoping the previous studies on EPSs, there is a lack of research on the influence dynamics of these strategies for effective promotion of EPSs in the built environment. Therefore, this study investigates the dynamic influences of strategies by using the neurofuzzy model for the effective promotion of EPSs implementation. Through a comprehensive literature review, 14 strategies were employed in an expert survey. A total of 121 datasets were collected and analyzed in the study. From the data analysis, five groups were derived: technology education, innovation culture management, technological stimulation environment, incentives and partnership mechanism and organizational integration support. Further, the neurofuzzy model and sensitivity analysis were used to predict and determine optimal strategies for promoting EPSs implementation. The findings showed dynamic ways of hybridizing the strategies for EPSs promotion. Two hybrid-approaches, in addition to other strategies, that actively enhance effective EPS implementation are ‘innovation culture management – technology education’ and ‘innovation culture management – incentives and partnership mechanism’. Additionally, the combinations of strategies that result in low promotion of EPSs were also highlighted. This study provides a deepened understanding of the dynamic influences of strategies for researchers and practitioners to effectively promote the widespread implementation of EPSs in the built environment.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Article number | 130343 |
Journal | Journal of Cleaner Production |
Volume | 336 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 15 Feb 2022 |
Keywords
- Built environment
- Construction industry
- Electronic procurement systems
- Neurofuzzy
- Strategies
- Sustainable construction
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment
- General Environmental Science
- Strategy and Management
- Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
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In: Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 336, 130343, 15.02.2022.
Research output: Journal article publication › Journal article › Academic research › peer-review
TY - JOUR
T1 - Optimizing the application of strategies promoting electronic procurement systems towards sustainable construction in the building lifecycle
T2 - A neurofuzzy model approach
AU - Yevu, Sitsofe Kwame
AU - Yu, Ann T.W.
AU - Adinyira, Emmanuel
AU - Darko, Amos
AU - Antwi-Afari, Maxwell Fordjour
N1 - Funding Information: According to Mintzberg (1987), a strategy is a plan or some consciously intended course of action or guideline to deal with a situation. In this study, the term ?strategy? refers to an action, guide, scheme or plan that encourages successful implementation and continued use of EPSs. A strategy that promotes EPSs has attributes of mitigating the challenges to EPSs and facilitating EPSs implementation in building projects. As such, various strategies have been explored by previous studies. Strategies relating to change management, collaborative environments and management support have been widely identified in the literature from the perspectives of developed and developing countries (Kim et al., 2016; Wimalasena and Gunatilake, 2018; Lou and Alshawi, 2009). Kim et al. (2016) indicated that change management programs, open dialogues and change agents were significant to the success of implementing EPSs in the US. From the UK perspective, evidential proof of benefits and organizational alignment were identified as important strategies for the promotion of EPSs (Lou and Alshawi, 2009; Eadie et al., 2011). In addition, pilot projects and reward schemes were identified as critical strategies in the European and Australian contexts (Ozorhon et al., 2016; Aibinu and Al-Lawati, 2010). Wang et al. (2007) emphasized the importance of simplifying and standardizing processes to enhance EPSs implementation in China. In Sri Lanka and South Africa, institutional frameworks and financial supports were highlighted as important strategies for EPSs promotion in the construction industry (Wimalasena and Gunatilake, 2018; Ibem and Laryea, 2015).The underlying dimensions of the 13 critical strategies were grouped into clusters using the FA technique to better understand the complex phenomenon. For appropriateness of the data, the KMO value of 0.693 obtained in this study, is acceptable since it satisfies the minimum threshold of 0.50 (Hair et al., 2009). The Bartlett's test value was 300.378 with associated significance level of 0.000, indicates that the population correlation is not an identity matrix (Pallant, 2011). Both the KMO and Bartlett's tests demonstrated the suitability of the data for FA. Hence, the principal component analysis was used for factor extraction based on varimax rotation. Variables with factor loadings ?0.50 and components with eigenvalues ?1 were retained due to their significant contribution in the factor group and determining underlying clusters. Five components were extracted which accounted for 65.20% of variance, satisfying the >50% acceptable threshold (Field, 2013) (Table 4). This implies that the five component clusters extracted can adequately represent the strategies promoting EPSs in construction projects. The clusters were subsequently labelled as: (1) technology education (TE), (2) innovation culture management (ICM), (3) technological stimulation environment (TSE), (4) incentives and partnership mechanism (IPM), and (5) organizational integration support (OIS). These five strategies clusters (SCs) serve as input parameters for the neurofuzzy model to evaluate the influence and complexity of the strategies promoting EPSs in building projects.On the contrary, Table 8 also shows that approaches in GZ3 (i.e. PC6, PC8, PC11and PC12) result in only medium impact levels, and hence needs to be critically examined and improved for optimum results. This finding is reflective of the assertion by Sepasgozar et al. (2018) that an understanding of the pathways for successful technology adoption is needed, since not all the combination of strategies may be effective in promoting EPSs implementation. For instance, high TSE and OIS combined with ICM or TE or IPM produced medium impact levels, suggesting that the technological environment and organizational support (TSE-OIS) with another SC approach requires improvement for the strategies to be effective. Furthermore, combining high TE, TSE and IPM would generate medium impact levels, hence such combinations may not be adequate in actively promoting EPSs. This shows that there are dynamic relationships between the SCs. For example, although high ICM and TE were respectively combined with other SCs in PC8 and PC11, the resulting impact was medium. This finding is different from that of previous studies, that suggest focusing solely on individual strategies that are deemed important (Wimalasena and Gunatilake (2018). Instead, it should be based on careful selection of SCs (Fig. 6). To significantly improve the GZ3 approaches, a fourth SC should be increased to high levels, which would transform GZ3 to GZ1. A similar approach could be used to improve PC10 that has high TE, IPM and OIS, yet low impact.Although EPSs provide benefits that offer sustainable solutions in a building project's lifecycle, their implementation and continue use have been slow. This study investigated the impact of various strategies for effective promotion of EPSs in building projects, to facilitate digital transformations for sustainable construction. Fourteen strategies were identified through a comprehensive literature review. The findings from the survey in Ghana first indicated that 13 out of the 14 strategies were critical strategies in the promotion of EPSs. The critical strategies were clustered through factor analysis as technology education (TE), innovation culture management (ICM), technological stimulation environment (TSE), incentives and partnership mechanism (IPM) and organizational integration support (OIS). The neurofuzzy model was applied to the SCs to determine the complex and nonlinear relationships influencing their impact on EPSs promotion. In addition, sensitivity analysis was conducted to examine effective hybrid-approaches that optimize EPSs promotion strategies in typical resource constrained project environments. The findings show that at least three SCs have to be carefully selected in two approaches (i.e. ICM-IPM and TE-ICM) (Fig. 6) to enable the optimization of SCs for effective EPSs promotion. The findings further demonstrate that the SCs are highly interrelated, and their complementary relationships may provide explanations on why focusing on innovation culture and/or technological education alone has not been sufficient in actively promoting the wider use of EPSs in projects.This paper forms part of a PhD research study on electronic procurement implementation in the construction industry. It which might share similar background with other papers but with different objectives and scopes. The authors would like to thank the Department of Building and Real Estate of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University for funding this research. We are also thankful to the editors and anonymous reviewers whose comments and suggestions significantly helped in improving the quality of the paper. Funding Information: The PCs in GZ2 (i.e. PC7, PC9, PC13, PC14 and PC15) provide a hybrid-approach to achieve high promotion of EPSs in typical resource constrained construction project environments. For PC7 and PC9, high influences of ICM and IPM combined with OIS or TSE have great capabilities of promoting EPSs in building projects. This shows that innovation culture can be associated with rewards, collaboration and technological support as a key promotion strategy in the implementation of EPSs. Although, this finding partly supports studies that assert the importance of providing technology adoption incentives and support ( Wimalasena and Gunatilake, 2018 ; Costa and Tavares, 2014 ), it further establishes their association with innovation culture as an effective path to promote EPSs in project organizations. Additionally, attaching a stimulating environment for technology via mandatory policies and financial support to innovation culture and incentive schemes enable EPSs implementation. With Jacobsson et al. (2017) and Xu et al. (2020) emphasizing the need for policies in technology adoption, it is evident that a more suitable approach is to align such technology adoption policies with proactive innovation culture and incentives for a desirable outcome. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 Elsevier Ltd
PY - 2022/2/15
Y1 - 2022/2/15
N2 - Digital transformations in the built environment address inefficiencies and sustainability issues in the building lifecycle. Accordingly, electronic procurement systems (EPSs) have benefits that improve the economic, environmental and social initiatives for sustainable construction. However, the slow rate of EPSs uptake evinces the need for strategic approaches towards their widespread implementation. Scoping the previous studies on EPSs, there is a lack of research on the influence dynamics of these strategies for effective promotion of EPSs in the built environment. Therefore, this study investigates the dynamic influences of strategies by using the neurofuzzy model for the effective promotion of EPSs implementation. Through a comprehensive literature review, 14 strategies were employed in an expert survey. A total of 121 datasets were collected and analyzed in the study. From the data analysis, five groups were derived: technology education, innovation culture management, technological stimulation environment, incentives and partnership mechanism and organizational integration support. Further, the neurofuzzy model and sensitivity analysis were used to predict and determine optimal strategies for promoting EPSs implementation. The findings showed dynamic ways of hybridizing the strategies for EPSs promotion. Two hybrid-approaches, in addition to other strategies, that actively enhance effective EPS implementation are ‘innovation culture management – technology education’ and ‘innovation culture management – incentives and partnership mechanism’. Additionally, the combinations of strategies that result in low promotion of EPSs were also highlighted. This study provides a deepened understanding of the dynamic influences of strategies for researchers and practitioners to effectively promote the widespread implementation of EPSs in the built environment.
AB - Digital transformations in the built environment address inefficiencies and sustainability issues in the building lifecycle. Accordingly, electronic procurement systems (EPSs) have benefits that improve the economic, environmental and social initiatives for sustainable construction. However, the slow rate of EPSs uptake evinces the need for strategic approaches towards their widespread implementation. Scoping the previous studies on EPSs, there is a lack of research on the influence dynamics of these strategies for effective promotion of EPSs in the built environment. Therefore, this study investigates the dynamic influences of strategies by using the neurofuzzy model for the effective promotion of EPSs implementation. Through a comprehensive literature review, 14 strategies were employed in an expert survey. A total of 121 datasets were collected and analyzed in the study. From the data analysis, five groups were derived: technology education, innovation culture management, technological stimulation environment, incentives and partnership mechanism and organizational integration support. Further, the neurofuzzy model and sensitivity analysis were used to predict and determine optimal strategies for promoting EPSs implementation. The findings showed dynamic ways of hybridizing the strategies for EPSs promotion. Two hybrid-approaches, in addition to other strategies, that actively enhance effective EPS implementation are ‘innovation culture management – technology education’ and ‘innovation culture management – incentives and partnership mechanism’. Additionally, the combinations of strategies that result in low promotion of EPSs were also highlighted. This study provides a deepened understanding of the dynamic influences of strategies for researchers and practitioners to effectively promote the widespread implementation of EPSs in the built environment.
KW - Built environment
KW - Construction industry
KW - Electronic procurement systems
KW - Neurofuzzy
KW - Strategies
KW - Sustainable construction
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85122621187&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.130343
DO - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.130343
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85122621187
SN - 0959-6526
VL - 336
JO - Journal of Cleaner Production
JF - Journal of Cleaner Production
M1 - 130343
ER -