Towards Governed Human–Automation Collaboration for Decision-Making in Construction Project Management: A Practitioner’s Perspective

Construction automation is advancing rapidly, yet its integration into project-management decisions raises questions about organisational readiness, accountability and reliance on machine outputs. Existing studies largely emphasise technical capability or adoption intention, offering limited practitioner evidence on how decision authority is allocated in project settings. This study analyses semi-structured interviews with 13 Hong Kong construction practitioners conducted between March and December 2021. The interviews elicited perceptions of machine intelligence and associated digital decision support, which are interpreted within a broader human–automation collaboration framework. Participants described cost and learning requirements, implementation motivation, technical staffing and digital leadership as adoption concerns. They also linked the perceived role of automation to task context, input quality, familiarity, organisational culture and accountability. Their implementation suggestions emphasised needs-driven selection, bottom-up participation and complementary technology support. The resulting conceptual framework connects readiness, role allocation, accountability and feedback learning. It proposes explicit decision ownership, override and monitoring arrangements for project-management applications.