Support for organizational change: Change-readiness outcomes among AEC project teams

A major area of innovation within the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry involves the re-engineering of project delivery processes, yet successful implementation of such processes requires a significant organizational change effort. The AEC industry is often regarded as a laggard in the uptake of innovation, and personnel resistance to change is among the most commonly cited barriers to change adoption. The objective of this study was to understand the extent to which project level personnel change readiness is affected by a variety of antecedents within 16 AEC owner organizations, each of which independently implemented a planned strategic change in their project delivery processes. An outcome-oriented perspective of change readiness was incorporated to empirically document behavioral response to change at the individual level (n=96) among owner project managers and contracting officers. Change readiness outcomes were measured via an action research method in relation to contextual, personnel, content, and process antecedents present prior to change implementation on each AEC project. Results indicated that change management process factors of increased change message delivery and extensive change agent involvement had the greatest effect on outcomes of high change readiness. Individual experience and project scope considerations also had a relationship with change readiness, although to a far lesser extent. Contributions of this study include an empirical, multiorganization, real-time data set of change implementation within the AEC industry, identification of significant antecedent effects on personnel change readiness outcomes, and associated recommendations for change practitioners. Future research is recommended to investigate additional personnel-oriented characteristics of project teams and their corresponding relationship to change readiness.