BIM’s Formal and Informal Collaborative Networks in Traditional Procurement: Insights from the Construction Phase of a Hospital Case Study

The impact of building information modeling (BIM) implementation on collaborative networks in the design-bid-build (DBB) setting remains equivocal, particularly during the construction stage. Drawing on the sociotechnical perspective, we explore how BIM implementation affects relationship patterns of formal and informal collaborative networks in the DBB contract together with their in-role behaviors (IRBs) and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) during the construction phase. A complex BIM-enabled hospital project was selected as the case study. Social network analysis was performed to investigate and interpret the data. The findings reveal that although formal collaborative networks have a higher network density than informal collaborative networks, both networks are important in BIM implementation during the construction stage because they are strongly correlated. The study also revealed that the higher the betweenness centrality in formal and informal collaborative networks, the higher the degree of IRBs and OCBs, indicating that project stakeholders with higher betweenness centrality positions in a BIM-enabled project network are likely to have a stronger sense of responsibility and devotion for better project collaboration. The research findings render significant theoretical insights into the improved and coordinated interorganizational collaboration among project stakeholders in BIM-enabled DBB projects through the key influencing factors of IRBs and OCBs.