Abstract/Summary

Construction 4.0 is bringing digitization, innovation, and new technologies, and changing the way we design, plan, and construct our projects. Such change impacts ‘traditional’ ways of working as it actively seeks to disrupt the norm and so enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of construction project delivery. However, technology is not neutral, as it brings both intended and unintended consequences to practice, not least due to the fundamental asymmetries of power latent in the adaptation of new technologies, and the largely autonomous (and often unchallengeable) role granted to technology as the harbinger of ‘progress.’ Here we specifically explore how Construction 4.0 may impact power relationships within our industry, aiming to stimulate debate and discussion by presenting a challenge to the technocratic optimism and determinism that currently surrounds it in practice. For the construction industry, there are potentially dramatic consequences for clients, architects, engineers and site managers, and workers, as their roles shift and reshape to suit technological requirements. Indeed, a new role, the ‘technology owner’, may become more powerful than any traditional profession in the future, as they become dominant actors within the construction industry space. Here we draw on the industrial revolutions of the past, and the wider contexts of this technological change to consider how our industry may itself change in the future. By exploring Construction 4.0 in this way, changes in power, roles, identity, and practice can be unpacked, and generate findings able to inform future research agendas and the practical management of Construction 4.0 adoption within our industry.