Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of digital technologies adoption on the forms of organization of large architecture and engineering (A/E) firms. Network theory has attracted scholarly and managerial attention, particularly from the perspective of the changes of project organization. However, little research focuses on network theory as a lens for understanding and managing the new forms of firms’ organization. Additionally, conventional organizational analyses are hampered by the lack of methods for understanding the changes in roles and relationships due to the adoption of digital technologies and examining their impact on organizational structures. Design/methodology/approach To address this gap, this research adopted a mixed-method case-study approach. This approach combined interviews, regular check-ins, and document analysis with data mining and social network analysis (SNA) to capture the changes of intra-organizational roles and relationships and for understanding their impact on the firm’s organizational structure. Using the data gathered, the authors created a dendrogram that shows the formal organizational structure, a sociogram that displays the informal organizational structure and a network map that visualizes the interplay between the two structures. Findings From this analysis, the authors identified four main findings: informal roles – as go-to people for advice and information about digital technologies – play within A/E firms facing digital transformation; such go-to people operate through informal networked relationships and beyond their formal roles; most of these relationships do not overlap with the formal reporting relationships; the combination of both these roles and relationships create an informal social network. The authors also show how managers can use SNA to understand the changes in roles and relationships due to the adoption of digital technologies and to diagnose their impact on organizational structures. Originality/value This research contributes to the literature of organizational design and change management from a network perspective in the context of the digital transformation of large A/E firms. It provides a systematic data-driven approach to understanding the changes of intra-organizational roles and relationships within A/E firms facing digital transformation and to diagnosing the impact of these changes on firms’ organizational structures.

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The latest innovations in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) along with the establishment of the new paradigms of Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data Management are opening up innovative scenarios with respect to cognitive and decision making processes related to the management of the built environment. The novel availability of information offered by these digital technologies can lead to the definition of strategies aimed at significantly reducing management costs and improving building performance and service quality. Although this potential is now widely recognized by the various operators in the sector, experimentations have not yet led to a harmonization and standardization of procedures, processes and enabling technologies applications. The paper proposes strategies and tools for supporting the various FM operators in the choice and implementation of IoT technologies as well as in the management of Big Data and their sources, aiming at optimizing and innovating the current FM processes, models and services.

I4.0 revolution is permeating every technical sector, by promoting deployment of enabling technologies (ETs), also in the facility management (FM) discipline. As FM regards the integration of processes within an organization to support activities, it is clear how ETs can trigger, in the FM area, significant innovations like a better failure knowledge management and a sustainable use of resources. More specifically, the implementation in building maintenance of dynamic systems, linked to sensors networks, can allow changes into knowledge management and FM decision-making processes. Starting from these premises, the paper deals with an ongoing research, whose aim is to investigate how ETs may innovate the traditional maintenance strategies with new approaches in corrective, condition-based and predetermined maintenance. According to the above, building maintenance, which is traditionally reactive, may actually become proactive if failure management policy is set. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how ETs adoption may promote innovation in FM processes focusing on maintenance in service equipment field. More specifically, an operative and methodological framework for reaching proactive maintenance is described through the support of a case study concerning two major healthcare infrastructures in Italy, managed by a major FM company.

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