The present study examines, through a behavioral survey, the self-reported intentions of consumers in Greece, Portugal and Spain, in relation to a residential hybrid system that offers ...heating/cooling and domestic hot water (DHW); the system combines ground source heat pumps, solar thermal panels and thermal energy storage. A positive attitude concerning the adoption intention of the system has been recorded, while the results on Willingness to Pay (WTP) and acceptable payback period reveal that there is a potential market for the hybrid system in the three countries. The analysis indicates that consumers’ intentions are similar among the three countries, with the only statistical significant difference occurring between Spain and Portugal on the subject of WTP for the system. The socioeconomic factors that are identified to have an effect on consumers’ intentions in relation to the hybrid system are gender, income, educational level, occupation, past investments in thermal energy systems and percentage of income spent on household energy needs; the corresponding residence characteristics include location, building type, dwelling size, year of construction and existing system for space heating and DHW. The study’s findings can contribute to the broader understanding of consumers’ behavior concerning the adoption of residential heating/cooling and DHW systems.
•Consumers’ intentions for a hybrid system offering heating/cooling and DHW were investigated.•The system combines ground source heat pumps, solar thermal panels and thermal energy storage.•A behavioral survey was performed in Greece, Portugal and Spain.•Perceived benefits, willingness to accept, willingness to pay and acceptable payback period were examined.•Various socioeconomic and residence characteristics were identified to affect the issues under investigation.
Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is receiving increasing attention by the industry and the scientific community. The first commercial services are expected to be launched in a short period. However, users’ ...acceptance and willingness-to-use UAM should not be taken for granted and need to be carefully assessed. This study presents the results of a large-scale RP-SI (Revealed Preference-Stated Intention) survey carried out in the metropolitan area of Milan (Italy): it was designed to collect data aiming at both profiling potential UAM passengers and developing models to assess the impact of different factors on users’ intention-to-use UAM services. The results obtained through hybrid ordered choice modeling analysis outlined the statistical importance of three identified latent constructs (i.e., flying concerns, propension towards technology and UAM safety concerns) in explaining the intention of using UAM services. Particularly, concerns regarding the flight or the UAM safety have been found to have a minor negative influence in the intention to use UAM compared to the user's propension towards technology which has instead a major positive influence. Moreover, a lower propensity towards embracing these new aerial services has been found in females and in those currently not traveling alone, while those traveling for business purposes or using taxis for daily travels exhibit a higher propensity towards their adoption.
Straw energy utilization has been considered a prosocial practice, which is conducive to increasing the efficiency of agricultural waste resources and improving the ecological environment. ...Individuals' willingness to engage in such a prosocial technology relies on the double constraints of rational and altruistic factors. This paper develops a theoretical model to understand the function of rationality and altruism in rural households' acceptance of straw energy utilization. Partial least squares structural equation modeling is employed to test and evaluate the research data collected by a cross-sectional survey in Northeast China. Results display that 82.7% of the variance is explained by the proposed model in rural households' acceptance of straw energy utilization. Personal norms, attitude, perceived behavioral control, and subjective norm have significantly positive effects on the willingness to adopt straw energy utilization, and the effects sequentially weaken (i.e., 0.422, 0.245, 0.167, 0.166, respectively). The influence coefficients of rational predictors are 0.578, while the influence coefficients of altruistic predictors are 0.422. Overall, rational predictors exert more significant effects on rural households' acceptance of straw energy utilization than altruistic predictors. In addition, promotion strategies and policies for straw energy utilization are provided based on the motivation analysis in rural households' acceptance.
•This study focuses on the tradeoff between two discrepant streams of antecedents.•A theoretical model is proposed considering rational and altruistic factors jointly.•Rationality is the dominant factor in the acceptance of straw energy utilization.
Sustainable building connects with the safeguarding principles on built environment and climate change reality. Research have shown a compelling stakeholders' willingness to invest in sustainable ...buildings in the developed economies and some emerging economies. However, information on key market actors' opinion on the sustainability attributes, their willingness to adopt sustainable features and the acceptance of sustainable policy in residential property development in sub-Saharan Africa is under investigated. Our paper adopts a trio of the market-led actors' perspective evaluation; Investors, Contractors and Users, to investigate perceptions on the sustainability attributes of eight contextual property-related sustainable features, unfolded from sustainability literature and identified during the pilot study in Lagos; the largest property market and economic nerve-centre of West Africa and Nigeria. We also examine the stakeholders' willingness on the use of the sustainable features. The study employed analysis of variance, correlation analysis and willingness to adopt index (WTAI) and found that variations exist among different stakeholders. Therefore, the need to sensitize all stakeholders on the attributes of sustainable buildings, especially the extra-environmental benefits which is more relevant to the stakeholders in taking decisions on sustainable building adoption in developing economies.
Part of the success of climate change adaptation strategies relies on the accurate identification of barriers and incentives to the installation of Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) by private ...individuals. To identify the variables influencing that willingness, we carried out a questionnaire-based survey in the Eurometropolis of Strasbourg (France). Descriptive statistics on the 359 responses highlight, in particular, a lack of knowledge about rainwater management. Those who have already installed one SuDS identify both economic and environmental advantages. Results of a binomial logit show that, unlike socio-economic characteristics of respondents, variables of perception influence the willingness of households to adopt SuDS. Social norms play an important role and a spatial adoption contagion is observed but the word of mouth phenomenon does not seem to be present. This study adds new insights into understanding what is needed to encourage households to install SuDS of their own and mainstream these blue-green infrastructures.
PurposeManaging the growing word-of-mouth (WOM) of brand fans has become a new challenge for companies in the fan economy era. The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of language intensity ...of brand fan WOM on customers' willingness to adopt WOM based on psychological resistance theory and to reveal the underlying mechanism of this process.Design/methodology/approachA research model was developed to test the proposed hypotheses. Two experiments were conducted on an online platform using data from 708 participants. The independent samples t-test and analysis of variance were used to analyze the data.FindingsThe results show that, in the context of WOM among brand fans, high-intensity language leads to a lower willingness to adopt than low-intensity language and threats to freedom mediate this effect. Moreover, the restoration postscript moderates the effect of language intensity on threats to freedom and customers' willingness to adopt WOM.Originality/valueUnlike previous studies that focused on electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) language content, this paper focuses on language intensity to reveal the psychological process of customers' willingness to adopt brand fan WOM. The findings not only enrich the research related to the language effect in eWOM, but also deepen the understanding of the influence effect on brand fan WOM, providing effective guidance for brands to manage fan WOM.
To reduce dependence towards non-renewable sources of energy, green electricity plans were introduced as an environmentally friendly alternative to conventional electricity plans. While perceived to ...be pricier, green electricity plans can be adopted by small and medium-sized enterprises. As such, this study aims to understand the motivations and deterrents for the willingness to adopt such plans by small and medium-sized enterprises in an Asian context, specifically in Singapore. The results revealed that respondents that indicated a higher score towards questions relating to sustainability awareness were more likely to be willing to adopt green electricity plans. In addition, tenants who exhibit a moderate expected retailer's dependence on renewable electricity were also more likely to be willing to adopt green electricity plans. When considering whether to switch to green electricity plans, these factors were listed in addition to the price of green electricity plans: (1) Environmental impact and firms' motivation to go green, (2) Quality of services provided by their electricity retailer, and (3) Ease of switching to a green electricity plans. Furthermore, pricing and trustworthiness/reliability of the retailer were listed as the top two factors that would motivate and deter firms from switching to another electricity retailer. The results from this study could inform electricity retailers and policy makers on the factors that contribute to small and medium-sized enterprises willingness to adopt green electricity plans in an Asian context.
The introduction of shared autonomous vehicles into the transport system is suggested to bring significant impacts on traffic conditions, road safety and emissions, as well as overall reshaping ...travel behaviour. Compared with a private autonomous vehicle, a shared automated vehicle (SAV) is associated with different willingness-to-adopt and willingness-to-pay characteristics. An important aspect of future SAV adoption is the presence of other passengers in the SAV—often people unknown to the cotravellers. This study presents a cross-country exploration of user preferences and WTP calculations regarding mode choice between a private non-autonomous vehicle, and private and shared autonomous vehicles. To explore user preferences, the study launched a survey in seven European countries, including a stated-preference experiment of user choices. To model and quantify the effect of travel mode attributes and socio-demographic characteristics, the study employs a mixed logit model. The model results were the basis for calculating willingness-to-pay values for all countries and travel modes, and provide insight into the significant heterogeneous, gender-wise effect of cotravellers in the choice to use an SAV. The study results highlight the importance of analysis of the effect of SAV attributes and shared-ride conditions on the future acceptance and adoption rates of such services.
The paper examined the factors influencing farmer’s willingness to adopt GI (geographical indication) practices in the Indonesian coffee sector from a psycho behavioral perspective. Specifically, the ...paper examined the psychological factors influencing the willingness of farmers to adopt GI. The study combined (1) the Planned Behavior (TPB) theory and (2) Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as the theoretical framework. The following psycho behavioral factors were constructed and tested: subjective norm (SN), perceived behavioral control (PBC), attitudes toward behavior (ATB), perceived usefulness (PU) and perceived economic benefit (PEB). The study also investigated the effects of sociodemographic factors on these psycho behavioral constructs. The survey was conducted in two geographical indication coffee territories in Indonesia that involved 178 farmers who are perceived as willing to adopt GI practices and procedures. The relationship between constructs was investigated in which structural equation modeling (SEM) was used. The obtain data were analyzed using WarpPLS 7.0. The study finds that attitude toward behavior, perceived behavioral control, and perceived economic benefit, as important factors influencing the willingness to adopt GI practices. The subjective norm did not affect willingness to adopt GI practices. Farmers’ knowledge mainly affected perceived behavioral control and willingness to adopt GI practices and procedures.
Geographical indication coffee; Willingness to adopt; Structural equation model; Theory of planned behavior; Technology acceptance model.
Intensive cattle production systems are currently a major contributor to CO
2
emissions and biodiversity loss. Silvopastoral systems that combine foraging pastures and trees into an integrated system ...for raising livestock have been suggested a promising avenue to store carbon and preserve farmland biodiversity. However, investments and maintenance costs for these improvements are paid by producers, who reap few of the environmental benefits. The objective of the present study was to assess farmers’ willingness to adopt silvopastoral systems by reforesting treeless pastures, their compensation claims related to adoption, and how both are affected by their attitudes towards silvopastoral systems. This study was based on a contingent valuation approach coupled with exploratory factor analysis to obtain measures of attitudinal constructs derived from the Theory of Planned Behavior. Results indicate that 52% of respondents were willing to adopt silvopastoral systems and the mean compensation claim per year per hectare is estimated at SEK 3107.17 (308€). Adoption decision is positively correlated with attitudes towards silvopastoral systems, suggesting that decision-making is not solely driven by profit maximization through concerns related to pecuniary factors.
PDF
