Purpose:
This study aims to investigate the complexity factors associated with BIM-enabled projects. BIM has been widely promoted as a potential solution to numerous challenges that hinder productivity in construction projects, owing to its numerous advantages. Nevertheless, it is crucial to acknowledge the heightened complexity it introduces to project workflows, stakeholder coordination and information management.

Design/methodology/approach:
This study employs the Delphi method to identify and extract complexity factors specific to BIM-enabled projects. A panel of industry and academic experts is engaged to discern and prioritise these factors based on their expertise and knowledge.

Findings:
The study reveals a comprehensive list of 34 complexity factors that significantly impact BIM-enabled projects. Among the most influential factors are laws and regulations, variety of procurement methods, technical capabilities of teams, project manager competence, information transfer capacity, range of project deliverables and diversity of project locations. The findings highlight the importance of these factors and emphasise the need for proactive and adaptive management to navigate their impact and achieve positive project outcomes.

Originality/value:
This study introduces the DEBACCS framework, a metric-based model designed to understand and evaluate complexity within BIM-enabled projects. DEBACCS stands for seven key dimensions: diversity, emergence, belonging, autonomy, connectivity, context and size. These dimensions represent essential aspects for gauging project complexity. By applying the concept of complexity from project management to BIM, the study offers valuable insights for practitioners and researchers. It provides a unique perspective on the challenges and considerations associated with implementing and managing BIM in construction projects. The findings have practical value for practitioners, enabling them to better understand and address the implications of complexity in BIM-enabled projects, ultimately leading to improved project outcomes.

@en

With the rise of global urbanization, the rural built environment has undergone tremendous changes. As such, the rural built environment impacts on residents’ daily travel behavior is getting more researchers’ attention. To date, most of the research focuses on urban areas in developed countries. To understand the state-of-the-art of interplay between the rural built environment and travel behaviors and to identify future research directions, this study adopts a science mapping approach to identify the relevant topics, authors, journals, and countries of the research done. This study proceeds through bibliometric retrieval of articles from 2005, followed by scientometric analysis and qualitative discussion. 37 documents are found to compare urban and rural domains, with 28 on the rural built environment. Research gaps and the research trends are discussed, of which the main themes are multi-dimensional correlation comparison of rural transportation service systems and emerging transportation modes, the influence of rural social and cultural factors on travel behavior, and low-carbon sustainable transportation. This review provides empirical foundation for current state-of-the-art and identifies the future research directions, specifically for rural built environment impact on travel behavior.@en

Under circumstances of pervasive global aging combined with weakened traditional family elder care, an incremental demand for institutional elder care is generated. This has led to a surge in research regarding institutional elder care. Rural residents’ institutional elder care is receiving more attention as a major theme in social sciences and humanities research. Based on 94 articles related to rural institutional elder care, this study identified the most influential articles, journals and countries in rural institutional elder care research since 1995. This was done using science mapping methods through a three-step workflow consisting of bibliometric retrieval, scoping analysis and qualitative discussion. Keywords revealed five research mainstreams in this field: (1) the cognition and mental state of aged populations, (2) the nursing quality and service supply of aged care institutions, (3) the aged care management systems’ establishment and improvements, (4) the risk factors of admission and discharge of aged care institutions, and (5) deathbed matters regarding the aged population. A qualitative discussion is also provided for 39 urban and rural comparative research papers and 55 pure rural research papers, summarizing the current research progress status regarding institutional elder care systems in rural areas. Gaps within existing research are also identified to indicate future research trends (such as the multi-dimensional and in-depth comparative research on institutional elder care, new rural institutional elder care model and technology, and correlative policy planning and development), which provides a multi-disciplinary guide for future research.@en

Building information modeling (BIM) has developed as the definitive technology for managing construction projects. With its rise, the corresponding role of BIM manager has emerged as a necessary adjunct role in coordinating BIM-enabled projects. The ascent of the BIM manager has attracted a significant body of research, investigating the various competencies and responsibilities required of the role. While BIM is here to stay, a recent study, however, asserts that a distinct role oriented around BIM is transitory, which represents a significant departure from accepted assumptions regarding the viability of the BIM manager role. This research sets out to test the likelihood of a long-term market demand for the BIM manager, as a distinct role, based on a robust quantitative analysis of open-source data from a rich empirical dataset of global relevance for North America, Europe, and Australasia. Text mining methods are used. A total of 199 BIM-related jobs were retrieved from 14 of the most relevant job websites, representing the global English speaking job markets. Key knowledge, skills, and abilities that are attributes of BIM jobs were extracted and analyzed. Analysis reveals that there is no significant difference between the roles BIM manager and BIM coordinator. Moreover, the findings highlight that these two BIM roles align with that of project manager. Most importantly, analysis shows that BIM roles supplement the lack of BIM expertise within the role of project manager, and that, as BIM capabilities are increasingly absorbed by project managers, the rationale for an independent BIM expert will fade. The corollary is that BIM roles are a stopgap measure that can be expected to disappear as project managers absorb requisite BIM skills. The practical implication for construction engineering HR departments is that the prevailing policy of retaining dedicated BIM managers into the longer-term future should shift to one in which project managers are retrained to a level at which they possess comprehensive, independent BIM expertise.

@en