The construction sector exerts an exceptional impact on economic development all over the world. Adequate buildings and infrastructures made by the construction sector ensure that a country reaches certain targets like social development, industrialization, freight transportation, sustainable development, and urbanization. This study aims to determine the construction sector’s connectivity with other sectors through complex linkages that contribute immensely to the economy and gross domestic product (GDP). The data were collected from the Department of Statistics Malaysia and the World Bank from the year 1970 to 2019, and the Pearson correlation test, the cointegration test, and the Granger causality test were conducted. The vector error correction model (VECM) was created for short-term and long-term equilibrium analysis and impulse response function (IRF) was performed to study construction industry behavior. Afterwards, the forecasting was done for the year 2020 to 2050 of the Malaysian economy and GDP for the required sectors. It was revealed that some sectors, such as agriculture and services, have forward linkages while other sectors, such as manufacturing and mining, are independent of construction sector causality, which signifies the behavior of the contributing sectors when a recession occurs, hence generating significant revenue. The Malaysian economy is moving towards sustainable production with more emphasis on the construction sector. The outcome can be used as a benchmark by other countries to achieve sustainable development. The significance of this study is its usefulness for experts all over the world in terms of allocating resources to make the construction sector a sustainable sector after receiving a shock. A sustainable conceptual framework has been suggested for global application that shows the factors involved in the growth of the construction industry to ensure its sustainable development with time.

The growing concept of Industry 5.0 (IR 5.0) has enhanced the study horizon of the technology-centered Industry 4.0 (IR 4.0) to an intelligent and balanced socioeconomic change powered mutually by people and technologies. The role of humans in the technological revolution is largely focused on IR 5.0, which is already a future trend. IR 4.0’s cyber–physical systems revolution has evolved into IR 5.0, or in other words, from machine-to-machine integration to human-to-machine integration, which is radically altering how people live, work, and interact with one another. Therefore, the current study aims to comprehensively review transformation through industrial revolutions and provide a way forward in the construction industry with the incorporation of IR 5.0. This study has used a narrative-based research methodology in which multiple databases such as Scopus, Web of Sciences, Google Scholar, and Science Direct have been utilized for extracting articles related to the subject area of the current study. Moreover, through narrative-based methodology, which is a generic-based review technique, the information gathered from multiple sources has been summarized and synthesized. The findings of the review indicate that resilience, human-centricity, economic efficiency, and sustainable development are the key characteristics of IR 5.0. Moreover, the adoption of IR 5.0 in the construction industry also faces some major challenges such as a shortage of IR 5.0-related technical skills, investment-hesitancy among investors, security, and cultural concerns for human-to-machine integration, and an unavailability of data for effective decision-making for governments and stakeholders. The study results also highlight that with selective technology adoption, project teams embracing IR 5.0 for improved collaboration and coordination, more environmentally friendly technology adoption through human-to-machine collaboration, and stakeholders leveraging the power of human knowledge and innovative proficiency through machines, reforms can be brought into the construction industry through the incorporation of IR 5.0. It is also important to keep in mind that adopting IR 4.0 is still difficult in some areas and it may seem like achieving IR 5.0 will require years of effort and significant cultural change; however, it needs to be considered right away. The effects of disruptive technologies on Industry 4.0 are covered in several studies; however, IR 5.0 is a novel idea that is still in its early stages, thus its consequences have not been well examined in the construction industry. Therefore, the current study has expanded the body of knowledge on this important subject in detail and has comprehensively explained the transformation by providing a way forward for the adoption of IR 5.0 in the construction industry.