Incident Reporting in the Construction Industry: An Empirical Investigation of the Antecedents Affecting Behavioral Intentions

Abstract

The adoption of electronic incident reporting system (E-IRS) has immense potential to overcome barriers inhibiting effective reporting of incidents in the construction industry. The successful implementation of E-IRS requires a rigorous understanding of system adoption and the factors that may encourage its usage. This research examined the barriers that inhibit the effective reporting of incidents along with the determinants influencing the use of electronic incident reporting systems in the construction industry. The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) is further extended in the study by integrating social influence, facilitating conditions, trust, and technological self-efficacy as external variables. The proposed model was trialed through the Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling technique by utilizing empirical data collected from 136 respondents associated with the construction industry. The study findings indicated that trust and perceived ease-of-use were key drivers that govern the acceptance behavior of E-IRS. Moreover, facilitating conditions and technological self-efficacy had a significant positive effect on perceived ease-of-use; while, social influence was found to have a meaningful impact on trust. This study further reinforces the applicability of the TAM coupled with four external variables in forecasting the utility of E-IRS in the construction industry and provided a roadmap for a better understanding of decisive factors affecting at large. In addition, its practical implications were also discussed aiming to step towards digitalization.