Development of an enterprise-level digital maturity assessment model (ELDMAM) based on environmental, social, governance (ESG)

Abstract

Many researchers assert that they have been introducing digitalization from Industry 4.0 into the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry for decades. However, for the most part, this is an extremely complex process whose relevant disciplines, ontologies, and maturity have yet to be elucidated, and the majority of these researchers focus on project-level digitalization studies rather than enterprise-level digitalization. It has been observed that a lack of a standardized method for identifying digitalization maturity and a lag in concept development for emergent society concepts (such as the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concept) prevented the AEC's digitalization process from leading other industries. To overcome these obstacles, AEC participants must comprehend their own digitalization maturity situation and how ESG considerations can be incorporated into digitalization maturity, which will enable them to reallocate their resources on specific digitalization development via an ESG performance analysis. This thesis proposes a novel strategy for developing a digitalization maturity model for the AEC industry by establishing a relationship between digitalization maturity stages and certain impactors. The impactor set and terms of description are based on essential AEC digitalization elements from an ESG perspective, which incorporates ESG factors into the assessment of a company's digitalization maturity level. To establish the relationship between potential impactors and maturity model, a literature review of the AEC industry's digitalization, current maturity models, ESG frameworks, and digital innovation in the AEC industry was conducted, along with a Delphi survey of industry experts and practitioners to compile their perspectives for refining and categorizing. The findings indicate that the digitalization maturity levels of the AEC industry can be classified into a five-level Capability Maturity Model (CMM) framework with three strata, and that ESG factors can be incorporated into the evaluation of an enterprise's digitalization maturity level using a set of indicators and metrics. In this study, the rubrics method is used to conduct metrics on each impactor at different levels, and the analytic hierarchy process method is implemented to generate importance values for score calculation use. Ten best practices from one international digitalization award are included in a comparative analysis of conducted evaluations for the same category. This ii

doctoral research also proposed a cross-analysis technique, dubbed Impact Assessment, to investigate a company's digitalization maturity level and its ESG performance so that four roles of AEC corporations can be identified for determining their market position. Overall, this thesis contributes to the development of a comprehensive digitalization maturity model with proposed assessment methods for the AEC industry that incorporates ESG factors, thereby assisting corporations in assessing their digitalization maturity and sustainability performance and guiding them toward more sustainable practices.