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This study aims to focus on a reinforcement supplier’s efforts to diffuse solutions, more or less innovative, in the construction sector to gain understanding of what facilitates and complicates innovation diffusion from a supplier perspective.

The interpretative research presented builds on 28 semi-structured interviews with the supplier and its customers and document studies. The research emphasizes dynamics in the diffusion process and rests on the assumption that the innovation content, innovation context and the innovation process interacts in the diffusion process.

The findings and the contribution from the study provide significant details concerning how the dimensions interact and how the diffusion process may unfold over time, but also that different solutions interact to push diffusion forward.

The study relates to one supplier’s work and the interplay implies uniqueness in different cases. Studies in other contexts could, therefore, also be suitable to develop findings and their transferability.

The study provides understanding for suppliers diffusing innovations in construction on how to act.

A major contribution from the study is that it puts emphasis on how the diffusion process proceeds in interaction with its content and context and problematizes this dimension. Furthermore, the importance of nuancing sub-contexts to display decisive factors in the diffusion process is emphasized.

The construction industry is one of the least automated industries. In the aspect of automation, the technical understanding is very dominant. Focus has mostly been on tools, robots and industrialisation. sociomaterial design shows us that what may first appear technologically deterministic can be replaced and actually call for reinvisioning the traditional focus. The purpose of this study is to introduce the agency of a sociomaterial designer in construction.

This is a conceptual paper with an empirical example. To understand the sociomaterial complexity and dynamics of automation, practice theories are applied. To test this approach, the authors give an example from a Danish (global) supplier engaged in a development project about technical aid (tools) in mounting and assembling gypsum walls.

The sociomaterial-designer can help to understand and make innovation happen when doing automation in construction; as the centre of innovation in construction processes, she works all day with practice, together with practitioners, focusing on material arrangements as located not only in practice, but also in the artefacts. She can help the supplier of construction materials in understanding different professional practices and the transformation to use smarter tools.

This research is within a new practice domain “sociomaterial-design” and it has to follow up with an empirical study that covers a development project with a sociomaterial-design approach.

Developing competences (agency) as a sociomaterial-designer when linking the sociotechnical understanding of Automation with practice.

This research showcases how sociomaterial perspectives can inform automation in construction.

This paper aims to explore what is known in the body of literature on sustainability professionals in the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry to support the formulation of research questions for future studies.

This was done through a systematic literature review in Scopus and Web of Science. In the literature search, 22 journal papers were selected to be included in the review because of their relevance to sustainability professionals, professional roles and environmental practices in the AEC industry.

Key characteristics of the papers such as methodology and theory are mapped, followed by main findings on how the sustainability profession and sustainability professionals’ roles are studied within the body of literature. The review shows that the topic of sustainability professionals in the AEC industry is currently under-researched and under-theorised. Specifically, there is a lack of in-depth studies on sustainability professionals’ roles and agency.

By providing an overview of the current literature on sustainability professionals in the AEC industry, it is possible to identify research gaps to formulate research questions for future studies.

This is important as collaboration between professions, including sustainability professionals, is believed to be the key for a successful shift towards sustainability; furthering the understanding of sustainability professionals’ role is, therefore, central.

This paper is the first systematic literature review on sustainability professionals in the AEC industry.

This paper will examine the unsafe work practices that are plaguing the construction industry. Statistics show that four out of five of all workplace accidents are attributed to unsafe behaviour. Research studies have sought to understand worker self-protection. For example, it is difficult to make predictions of conditions that influenced worker’s behaviour to act unsafely or safely in a given work situation. It is evident there is a gap in the literature in this area of research, most notably failing to understand the underlying “why” factors. The aim of the study is to identify and examine the proximate set of contributing factors most likely to have an influence on workers’ decisions about participation in unsafe behaviour.

To perform the study, questionnaires were adopted, and 225 construction workers from 9 construction companies participated in the study.

Results showed that both underlying organisational factors and individual factors could affect the risk aversion among construction workers. The paper also highlights measures to create a safe work environment to minimise unsafe behaviour among construction workers. Results from the study are important to help organisation to systematically plan for a good working environment.

As the results were based only from the questionnaires, a deeper understanding behind the workers’ responses was not probed.

Construction companies should work at several organisational levels at the same time. It is necessary to include levels such as individual, group, workplace and management levels, thus taking a system perspective on risk behaviour and safety.