Essays on the adoption of sustainable innovation and sustainable behavior

Abstract

The overall motivation of this research is to understand the adoption of sustainable innovations and sustainable behavior, with a focus on sustainable mobility-related behaviors. Contrary to the organizational adoption, research on consumer adoption investigates the determinants of adoption/non-adoption without considering the innovation-decision as a process. Hence, the first chapter aims to explore the existence of distinct stages and identify different determinants of each stage of sustainable innovation adoption. A sustainable technology, namely alternative engine cars (AECs) is selected as an empirical setting. Data is collected through an online survey in two different steps. The results from the first survey (N=110) confirmed the existence of five distinct stages namely knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation in line with Rogers' (2003) consumer adoption process. Based on these results, further data was collected (N=246) in order to identify different determinants of each of these stages. Different determinants in terms of perceived innovation characteristics of AECs were analyzed using a structural model. The study contributes by confirming the existence of distinct stages and developing a framework which not only determines the direction but also the strength of the relationships between different determinants and adoption stages. In the second chapter, the author submits that particularly for sustainable innovations, value proposition innovation (VPI) is salient since it is generally assumed that these technologies create value, yet customers fail to appreciate this value. Therefore, the research aims to answer how can a value proposition be innovated and how can VPI increase the attractiveness of sustainable technologies which otherwise are hard to diffuse? The author studied the case of a novel sustainable technology, namely vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and adopted a mixed-method approach building on two focus groups (N=8) and online experts surveys from Dutch sustainable car enthusiasts (N=54). The results suggest that value propositions increase new technologies attractiveness by (re)configuring different bundle of attributes according to values expressed by customer segments. The results suggest that VPI provides a solution to accelerate the diffusion of new technologies suffering from lock-in. The third chapter argues that a successful shift to sustainable travel modes does not solely depend on regulatory and technology push, as it should rather focus on changing individual behaviors as well. Hence, it is vital to understand the key drivers of such travel mode choices. Although there is a vast literature on the topic, the results are still inconsistent and inconclusive. Hence, the study aims to systematically analyze and synthesize the findings in the literature by examining the predictive capability of psychological and behavioral correlates of both, actual behavior and behavioral intention. A meta-analysis was conducted followed by moderator analyses of 58 primary studies. Results suggest that besides intentions, habits and past use represent the most relevant predictor of behavior, followed by constructs referring to the Theory of Planned Behavior framework. Environmental variables play a relevant role in shaping behavioral intentions but not actual behaviors, signaling a deep intention-behavior gap. The moderator analysis confirm that behaviors’ operationalization and measurement in primary studies causes heterogeneity in outcomes the most, above trip purpose, sample type and year of the study, while location does not appear as a relevant moderator. These results have theoretical as well as practical implications.