Diffusion Pattern Recognition of Technology Vendors in Construction

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New technologies are increasingly offered by vendors in the construction industry. Several studies in the literature have examined information technology adoption at the individual level, and how administrative and process innovations are diffused through the industry. However, vendors’ diffusion strategies for tools, plant and equipment from an organisational perspective have received very little attention. This paper explores the different patterns of strategies that vendor organisations use to influence their customers in the decision process, understanding that the customer is not usually an individual in the organisation but a much larger group of people, many of whom will not come into direct contact with the vendor’s staff. Vendors offer solutions to construction companies and support the decision makers by providing relevant information. It would be very helpful to recognise whether there are patterns in vendors’ diffusion strategies. Identifying the patterns and the basis of these patterns, such as particular technology types, would help customers predict the vendors’ role in technology adoption at an organisational level rather than at an individual level. Data about the activities and means of product presentation of vendors at a technology exhibition provided the basis for classification, analysis and pattern recognition. The identified patterns were subsequently validated using data from a second exhibition. The finding of the fuzzy analysis resulted in clustering the vendors into five classes according to three groups of technologies each with unique characteristics of behaviour. The presented classification pattern contributes to understanding the supportive strategies used by vendors to influence the decision of potential users.