BIM Adoption Among Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in the Construction Industry: A Socio-Technical Reading of Market Fragmentation, Organizational Constraint, and Incremental Digital Transformation, with Insights from the Portuguese Context

This paper examines how Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the construction industry approach Building Information Modeling (BIM) adoption in a context marked by slow uptake and market fragmentation, with reflections on the Portuguese context. BIM is internationally recognized as a technology that can improve project coordination, productivity, and information management, but its level and patterns of use vary widely. Based on a structured exploratory literature review and an interpretive scoring framework, this paper identifies challenges and enabling factors associated with BIM adoption in SMEs. The findings suggest that BIM adoption should not be understood as a simple technological change; rather, it can be interpreted as a complex socio-technical process shaped by interdependence among technical, financial, organizational, and human dimensions. This study conceptualizes fragmentation in the construction industry as a reinforcing condition that may amplify barriers and help explain why many implementation approaches have limited effectiveness. Given this context, SME progression may require incremental, context-adapted approaches based on collaboration, information management, and capacity-building initiatives. This article contributes an exploratory conceptual framework for understanding BIM adoption in economically constrained and difficult-to-transform environments. It provides a basis for future empirical studies and SME-oriented strategies, including potential applications within the Portuguese construction sector.