Social value in the digitalised construction environment

The construction industry has been under increasing pressure by clients to demonstrate its social contribution to the community. This social contribution has been termed as Social Value (SV). Although SV has been currently explored in non-digitalised construction environments, less is known about how digitalised construction environments can ensure the delivery of SV within a socio-technical systems approach. This paper aims to identify how digitalised construction environments could bring social outcomes within the internal stakeholders. To achieve this aim, a comprehensive literature review of the existing conceptualisation of SV in the construction industry was carried out and synthesised into a conceptual framework for integrating SV in the digitalised construction process. The literature reveals that construction stakeholders do not conceptualise SV in the same way. SV is commonly shaped by short-term compliance to fulfil the requirement for procuring contracts. Also, there is a lack of common approaches for internal stakeholders to integrate the delivery process of SV. The conceptual framework proposes an early integration of SV in the design phase to identify alternative methods to co-generate, monitor and communicate SV. Thus far, this study advances the knowledge about how digitalised construction environments can ensure Social Value delivery. This paper highlights the need for further research to integrate Social Value delivery in digital construction environments among internal stakeholders. A future study could validate the framework with internal stakeholders across the design phase.