Regionaal Bouwen aan Human Capital: Employing Causal Loop Diagrams to Depict the System of Factors Characterizing the Construction Sector and its Digitalization

This report discusses the preliminary results based on the Causal Loop Diagram (CLD) that has
been developed as part of a research study within the broader Regionaal Bouwen aan Human Capital (RBHC) project. The diagram was created with relevant stakeholders’ direct involvement during a workshop on September 12th, 2023 (in ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands). It depicts the most crucial factors characterizing the construction sector in the south of the Netherlands, its digitalization, and the relationships between them. The results presented in this report are partial. More work is still needed to explain the meaning of the CLD produced by stakeholders during this project.
Here, we offer a tool to understand CLDs and some preliminary conclusions about the most crucial factors of the system that characterize the construction sector in the south of the Netherlands and its digitalization. Factors are the building blocks of loops. Connecting factors between each other according to existing causal relationships, each loop expresses a theoretical construct. According to this study, the factors that are most crucial to the system are sustainability, (profit) margins, quality of planning, an innovation culture, investments in existing employees, long-term thinking, and rules and regulations. These factors are the most influential in composing the overarching narrative of the CLD, which will be explained with an in-depth analysis of the loops in the diagram.