Understanding Typologies of Resistance to Change in the AECO Industry

The Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operations (AECO) industry continues to face challenges of digital transformation, particularly in Building Information Modelling and Artificial Intelligence adoption, despite compelling evidence for their value. This paper questions whether "resistance to change" adequately explains non-use or instead obscures distinct causal mechanisms. A scoping literature review and thematic analysis were interpreted through critical realism and abductive reasoning, drawing on information- systems and implementation-science theory alongside ISO 19650, Metcalfe's Law, Martec's Law, the EPIS framework and the HMC-AEC model. Twenty themes were organised into a fourfold typology: 1) attitudinal resistance, 2) structural non-use, 3) knowledge-deficit non-use and 4) rational recalibration non-use. The findings indicate that apparently similar patterns of non-use may arise from different combinations of psychological, project, transactional, organisational and industry conditions. The study therefore shifts attention from observable symptoms towards underlying mechanisms and differentiated interventions.