Technology Adoption in Public Client Organisations: Institutional Perspectives From Sweden and The Netherlands

Public construction clients are slow to adopt new sustainable technologies. This inertia is investigated by studying two cases of public clients: Swedish public housing companies and the Dutch public infrastructure agency. By applying an institutional logics framework and comparing and contrasting the experience of technology adoption in two different geographical contexts and in two different sub-sections of the construction sector (housing vs. infrastructure, small client vs. large client), the findings show how technology adoption is difficult due to uncertainty avoidance and institutionalized norms, values and physical infrastructure that do not support the adoption of new technologies. In addition, the organisations struggle to reconcile conflicting logics of cost vs. sustainability, efficiency vs. flexibility, and a short-term project-related corporate logic vs. long-term asset management logic. The paper contributes an understanding of how and why technology adoption is limited in public client organisations, and what issues must be addressed to construct for the future.