What Scares You When Adopting Digital Technologies: Modeling Technological Risk Perception in the Construction Industry

During digital transformation, organizations must be prepared to adopt technologies while clearly understanding the risks involved. Given the construction industry’s inherently risk-averse nature, it is crucial to advance knowledge of technological risk perception and its implications for risk management and communication. This study aims to identify the key risk facets associated with adopting digital technologies, examine perceptions through underlying risk characteristics, and investigate how these perceptions influence digital technology adoption. A mixed-methods approach, combining a structured survey with expert interviews, was employed to capture quantitative patterns and contextual insights. The findings reveal that time, financial, and functional risks are the most salient facets when adopting digital technologies. These risks are generally perceived as controllable, observable, and well understood yet are still associated with considerable probability and severity. Moreover, different risk characteristics exert distinct effects on technology adoption, with perceptions of newness and commonness emerging as significant determinants in opposite directions. Building on these findings, the study proposes practical recommendations to support construction organizations in managing and responding to technological risks. This study contributes to the body of knowledge by exploring technological risk perception across its multiple facets and characteristics, thereby informing more targeted risk management and communication. It advances theories of risk perception, psychometric paradigm, and technology adoption while providing practitioners with practical guidance to support digital transformation in the construction industry.