Abstract Public clients are proposed as key actors in driving construction industry change towards a more sustainable, efficient and productive industry. Based on how they procure consultants and contractors, it is argued that public clients have the power and are in the position to act as “innovation supporters” and “change agents.” However, the client’s role as a driver of change and innovation is oversimplified and there is a need for further investigation into the client’s ability to drive industry change. This paper presents a case study of a public client’s initiative to drive industry change through the implementation of Building Information Modelling (BIM). We do this by investigating the process of intra-organisational change at the public client by mapping the client’s absorptive capacity for change. The case study shows difficulties in turning the external knowledge into actual transformation when implementing a systemic innovation such as BIM. Findings contribute to the literature on public clients as drivers of change and innovation in construction and are relevant to research on public clients as drivers for industry change and innovation and to research on BIM as a game changer.

中文翻译：

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公共客户推动行业变革的能力：实施BIM的案例

摘要提出了公共客户作为推动建筑行业向更可持续，高效和生产性行业转变的主要角色。根据他们如何采购顾问和承包商，有人认为公共客户具有权力并有能力充当“创新支持者”和“变革推动者”。但是，客户作为变革和创新推动者的角色被过分简化，因此有必要进一步调查客户推动行业变革的能力。本文以公共客户通过实施建筑信息模型（BIM）推动行业变革的举措为例。为此，我们通过绘制客户对变化的吸收能力来调查公共客户的组织内部变化的过程。案例研究表明，在实施系统创新（例如BIM）时，很难将外部知识转化为实际的转化。研究结果有助于推动公共客户成为建筑变革和创新的驱动力文献，并且与针对公共客户推动行业变革和创新的驱动力研究以及与BIM作为游戏规则改变者的研究相关。