Conceptualising information misinterpretation in digital asset delivery

Information misinterpretation is considered an implicit backdrop to ineffective communication in the Built Environment, underpinning errors, reworks, and defects. This research conceptualises misinterpretation in Digital Asset Delivery (DAD) to enable its impact mitigation using hermeneutics as a lens, and a critical literature review approach. A synthesis of literature was undertaken to define misinterpretation and identify its people-process-technology enablers across Digital and Non-Digital Asset Delivery. Misinterpretation, defined as assigning a divergent meaning to information from the sender’s intended meaning by a receiver, is rooted in the epistemological fragmentation of Built Environment stakeholders and processes, which culminates in discreet ideologies, representations, and tools/technologies. Human-technology interactions in DAD interpretation, conceptualised as a Sender-Asset information-Receiver-Technology (SART) Interpretive Model, facilitate misinterpretation, hence the need for its dimensions and antecedents to be identified. This research enriches information quality and value debates and extends the need for socio-technical frameworks that support effective digitalisation adoption to improve interpretation.