“It's your fault!” - said a public client to modernity advocates: An exploration of UK public sector’s viewpoints on the Modern Methods of Construction

The staggering demand for construction projects to meet a spectrum of public needs is projected to outstrip the industry’s supply capability. The Modern Methods of Construction (MMC), are methods that relies on shifting key construction processes offsite, a transformation from traditional practices that offers wider control, transpiring as a critical necessity. Public clients play a significant role as drivers for innovation and as the industry’s purchasing power, however, their uptake of MMC projects is still low, despite the associated benefits. The purpose of this study is to reveal the reasoning behind such low adoption. The research gap, herewith, is our lack of understanding on the perception of public clients from MMC, and how the same is contributing to their adoption’s indecision. This study utilised a qualitative approach to investigate the motives behind the public sector’s low MMC adoption. Semi-structured interviews with 14 of the United Kingdom’s public sector’s decision-makers, industry leaders, and experts have been conducted. Perspectives were argued against the Diffusion of Innovation theory (DOI). Overall, the innovation’s attributes informed the authors of the positive perceptions from the public sector, demonstrating that the low adoption of MMC is not linked to any embedded issues with the innovation itself rather being predominantly related to the dynamics between supply and demand. The former (supply), reflected a failure in communicating confidence, and the latter (demand), attained characteristics that are limiting wider uptake. This is the first study to apply the Diffusion of Innovation theory to reveal the relationship between UK public clients’ perceptions and their decision-making. Moreover, this paper addresses the scant attention to the use of theories to explain the flow of innovations in the construction context.