New Research Finds BIM Success Hinges on Leadership, Not Just Technology
A new study published in The Open Construction & Building Technology Journal by Dr. Carlos Alejandro Diaz Schery of the Department of Industrial Engineering, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Gávea, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — together with co-authors Flávia de Souza Costa Neves Cavazotte and Rodrigo Goyannes Gusmão Caiado — makes a pointed observation about why so many Building Information Modelling (BIM) projects fall short of expectations: the problem lies less in the software and more about how organizations are led through the change. Despite over 120,000 published studies on BIM deployment, experts estimate that between 60 and 70 percent of BIM efforts fail to deliver the benefits that were expected. Schery et al.’s study argues that the missing piece is a clear understanding of which leadership behaviors are needed at each stage of an organization’s BIM journey — and that this gap is particularly consequential in Latin America, where cultural dynamics, resource constraints, and uneven institutional support make the challenge more complex than in Europe or North America.
What the Researchers Did — and Found
To investigate this gap, the research team conducted a scoping review of academic literature sourced from the Scopus database, beginning with 576 records and narrowing these down through structured screening to 14 studies that directly examined the relationship between leadership behavior and BIM capability development. Bibliometric tools were used to map publication trends, international collaboration patterns, and shifts in key themes over time. The review was guided by two well-established frameworks: Bass and Riggio's four dimensions of transformational leadership — visible personal commitment, vision-setting, encouraging new ways of thinking, and tailored individual support — and Succar's three-stage BIM maturity model, which spans the journey from basic 3D modelling to full network-level integration with Industry 4.0 technologies. The analysis found that different leadership behaviors become more or less important depending on where an organization sits on that maturity journey. In the early stages of BIM adoption, a leader's personal commitment and visible advocacy matter most in winning over skeptical teams. As organizations move toward cross-disciplinary collaboration, encouraging staff to experiment and rethink established working methods becomes the priority. At the most advanced stage, sustaining long-term motivation and building shared digital visions across multiple organizations takes centre stage.
Key takeaways in a Latin American context
Beyond mapping these patterns, the study assembles them into a practical conceptual framework — a structured guide that construction managers can use to assess whether their leadership approach matches their organization’s current level of BIM capability, and to identify where adjustments are needed. The researchers note that this framework is exploratory and requires further empirical testing, but its value lies in giving practitioners a more specific and actionable way to think about leadership than the generic advice that currently dominates the field. The study also highlights that Latin America presents a distinct context: higher levels of hierarchy in organizations, collective working cultures, and the uneven pace at which BIM adoption has spread across the region all shape how leadership plays out in practice. The research was supported by Brazil's National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), the Carlos Chagas Filho Foundation for Research Support of Rio de Janeiro State (FAPERJ), and the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES).
Article Title: Leadership-Driven Pathways to BIM Maturity: Integrating Transformational Dimensions in Latin American AEC Digital Transformation — A Scoping Review
Read the published article here: https://bit.ly/4xcqnqa
JOURNAL
The Open Construction & Building Technology Journal
DOI: 10.2174/0118748368474442260507080715
If you want to publish your article please visit : https://bit.ly/4de0DRi
The Open Construction and Building Technology Journal
10.2174/0118748368474442260507080715
News article
Leadership-Driven Pathways to BIM Maturity: Integrating Transformational Dimensions in Latin American AEC Digital Transformation-A Scoping Review