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Megaprojects as niches of sociotechnical transitions: The case of digitalization in UK construction

Papadonikolaki, DE; Morgan, DB; Papachristos, DG; (2023) Megaprojects as niches of sociotechnical transitions: The case of digitalization in UK construction. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions , 48 , Article 100728. 10.1016/j.eist.2023.100728. Green open access

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Abstract

Transitions are processes of systemic change where niches peripheral to a sociotechnical regime accumulate momentum, scale up and eventually transform its core. In contrast to this dominant narrative in transitions research, infrastructure systems exhibit the reverse process as change propagates from the regime core to its periphery. We explore this under-researched process in the case of digitalization in UK construction. We analyse six UK megaprojects that span more than 30 years as a single longitudinal embedded case, and show how the adoption of digital technologies driven by regime incumbents, seeds the processes of technology adaptation, aggregation, and system transformation. The adoption of digital technologies by incumbents is necessary to cope with megaproject scale and scope. Their adaptation to technology instigates organizational level change that starts at the regime core, accumulates with each project and makes these changes ripple across the industry and transform it.

Type: Article
Title: Megaprojects as niches of sociotechnical transitions: The case of digitalization in UK construction
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.eist.2023.100728
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2023.100728
Language: English
Additional information: © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Keywords: Aggregation, Sociotechnical transitions, Megaprojects, Infrastructure, Digital
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of the Built Environment
URI: https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10168968
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