Building information modeling (BIM) has developed as the definitive technology for managing construction projects. With its rise, the corresponding role of BIM manager has emerged as a necessary adjunct role in coordinating BIM-enabled projects. The ascent of the BIM manager has attracted a significant body of research, investigating the various competencies and responsibilities required of the role. While BIM is here to stay, a recent study, however, asserts that a distinct role oriented around BIM is transitory, which represents a significant departure from accepted assumptions regarding the viability of the BIM manager role. This research sets out to test the likelihood of a long-term market demand for the BIM manager, as a distinct role, based on a robust quantitative analysis of open-source data from a rich empirical dataset of global relevance for North America, Europe, and Australasia. Text mining methods are used. A total of 199 BIM-related jobs were retrieved from 14 of the most relevant job websites, representing the global English speaking job markets. Key knowledge, skills, and abilities that are attributes of BIM jobs were extracted and analyzed. Analysis reveals that there is no significant difference between the roles BIM manager and BIM coordinator. Moreover, the findings highlight that these two BIM roles align with that of project manager. Most importantly, analysis shows that BIM roles supplement the lack of BIM expertise within the role of project manager, and that, as BIM capabilities are increasingly absorbed by project managers, the rationale for an independent BIM expert will fade. The corollary is that BIM roles are a stopgap measure that can be expected to disappear as project managers absorb requisite BIM skills. The practical implication for construction engineering HR departments is that the prevailing policy of retaining dedicated BIM managers into the longer-term future should shift to one in which project managers are retrained to a level at which they possess comprehensive, independent BIM expertise.

BIM-based Construction Networks (BbCNs) are teams comprising members from several specialist organisations to undertake BIM-related tasks on BIM-enabled projects. Fostering collaboration within BbCNs is a top priority for construction project managers, yet no explicit body of knowledge has focused on investigating the relevant research gaps in knowledge. The present study intends to address this gap by plotting the storyline of relevant research studies in the last 10 years (2006–2016). A “Collaboration Pentagon” consisted of context, process, task, team and actor as the theoretical lens is created through integration of relevant frameworks. The study draws upon a bibliometric analysis of 1031 studies on BIM alongside the outcome of a qualitative evaluation of a total of 62 carefully selected papers on collaboration in BbCNs. The findings reveal that the scholarship on collaboration on BIM-enabled projects has predominately focused on technology as one antecedent of collaboration while project-related and managerial antecedents have remained under-researched. Moreover, though enhancing collaboration necessitates inclusion of all influential antecedents, studies with such an all-inclusive perspective are rare. The study contributes to the field through this inclusive Collaboration Pentagon and by providing a systematic and objective evaluation of available literature on collaboration in BbCNs and uncovering respective gaps.