Factors Influence China's Off-Site Construction Technology Innovation Diffusion

Technology innovation is a key to Off-Site Construction (OSC), but it can achieve economic and social benefits through diffusion. Previous research mainly focused on the optimization or on-site applications of OSC technology innovation; little on its diffusion-related analysis. Diffusion performance generally leads to a faster and deeper diffusion of OSC technology innovation. To study what influence the diffusion performance of OSC technology innovation, the authors first determined the research border and proposed four hypotheses, and then conducted a questionnaire in various China's construction companies. After investigating 119 construction companies for three months, 151 valid responses were collected and analyzed using Hierarchical Regression and bootstrap-based mediation test approaches. The results found that both market and government had significant impacts on the diffusion performance with comparable influence degree (0.282** and 0.255**), the government played a dual-mediating effect with network power simultaneously (effect value is 0.215) and the technical versatility had a significant indirect influence (>0.204**) but weak direct impact (0.094) on the diffusion performance of OSC technology innovation. The conclusions explored the influence mechanism of different factors on the diffusion of OSC technology innovation and provided practical suggestions for both construction companies and government authorities to promote the development of OSC.