The purpose and definition of integration

A problem with technology research generally and construction IT research in particular, is that researchers have rarely seen their projects in the light of the way they can be applied in practice, i.e. most integration research provides a technology push by developing a new technology and trying to push it onto an application. The purpose of integration research in a practical sense is often ill defined and how well the proposed solution helps to overcome a practical problem, or how easily the solution can be organizationally exploited in the evolving construction context, is seldom tested. Thus, integration research has produced many solutions looking for real world problems. An alternative approach to technology push as a model for innovation that has gained much acceptance in management disciplines, is to follow research and development in support of a strategy pull. That is, for seeing what the evolving business needs are and then developing a solution to the business problem.