4. Methodology
4.1. Data sample & research context
Sixteen owner organizations from across the United States
and Canada participated in this study. Fourteen were public
sector organizations, including state, city, and county governments
as well as school districts and post-secondary educational
institutions. Two were private owners representing a
defense contractor and a private educational institution. Among
these sixteen owners, 52 individual AEC projects were
observed to document the amount of resistance encountered.
On each project, two key individuals from the owner's project
team participated: the lead contracting officer and lead project
manager (N = 104). Of the participating individuals, 69 were
frontline personnel, 27 were supervisor-level, and 8 were
executives. Regarding career stage, 18 of the participating
personnel were early career stage, 55 were mid-career, and 31
were late career.