Validating Global Drivers of Digital Twin Adoption in Construction: A Systematic Review and Delphi Study Toward a Policy Framework for Bahrain

Abstract

Digital Twin (DT) technology is being rapidly adopted across construction worldwide, but the literature still contains two gaps. Prior studies identify many drivers of DT adoption without integrating them into one framework, and few test those drivers empirically outside advanced economies, especially in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). This study gathers the global drivers and examines how well they fit the Bahraini construction industry. We combined a PRISMA-based systematic literature review of 133 studies with a two-round mini-Delphi survey of 15 Bahraini construction professionals, defining consensus as a median ≥ 4.0 together with an IQR ≤ 1.0 and/or agreement ≥ 70%, with borderline items retained where qualitatively relevant to the Bahraini context. The review produced 81 drivers across five groups: operational excellence, technological enablement, safety and risk management, stakeholder and organizational drivers, and strategic and business value. After merging 11 semantically redundant items identified in Round 1, 70 drivers were evaluated in Round 2, of which 25 met the full consensus criteria and a further 2 were retained as policy-relevant items on contextual grounds rather than statistical consensus, yielding 27 drivers carried forward (38.5%). These results question the idea that such technologies transfer cleanly between countries, and they offer a repeatable way to test context-specific adoption in emerging economies. From the top-ranked drivers, we proposed a conceptual Policy Enablement Framework aligned to Bahrain’s Economic Vision 2030 and UN SDGs 9 and 11. Whereas the drivers were confirmed through expert consensus, the framework’s policy instruments were derived analytically. They are therefore presented as propositions for future validation rather than empirically tested instruments.