Technology Adoption in Public Client Organisations: Institutional Perspectives from Sweden and the Netherlands

Paper i proceeding, 2023

Public construction clients are slow to adopt new sustainable technologies, which is problematic if public clients want to lead the charge of constructing for the future. This inertia is investigated by studying two cases: Swedish public housing companies and the Dutch public infrastructure agency. By applying an institutional logics framework and comparing the challenges of technology adoption in two different contexts (Sweden vs. the Netherlands, housing vs. infrastructure, small client vs. large client), the findings show how technology adoption is difficult due to uncertainty avoidance and institutionalised norms, values and physical infrastructure that do not support necessary changes needed to adopt new technologies. Also, the organisations struggle to reconcile conflicting logics of cost vs. sustainability, efficiency vs. flexibility, and a short-term project-related corporate logic vs. longterm asset management logic. The paper contributes an understanding of how and why changes that enable technology adoption is limited in public client organisations, and what issues must be addressed for public clients to construct for the future.