In this study, we draw upon current knowledge on social curiosity and integrate it with trait activation theory to propose when and how social curiosity trait influences an employee's organizational ...citizenship behavior directed at individual coworkers (OCBI). Specifically, we suggest that overt social curiosity positively affects an employee's OCBI through heightened employee social acceptance whereas covert social curiosity negatively affects OCBI through reduced employee social acceptance within the workgroup. We further contextualize these effects by focusing on the workgroup and suggesting that group task interdependence moderates the relationship between social curiosity trait and employee social acceptance as well as the indirect effect of social curiosity trait on OCBI. Multi-level analyses of time-lagged multi-source data from 567 employees and 116 supervisors nested in 116 workgroups supported our predictions. Our work increases the understanding of how a social curiosity disposition may ultimately build a sense of community at work.
The concept of a social licence to operate (SLO) that first emerged related to mining has been developed into several strands of theoretical models and used to study the social acceptance of ...industries in different contexts. There is an emerging literature on SLO for salmon-farming, but very few quantitative analyses are done to identify and assess factors that affect the level of social acceptance. Models that explain social acceptance levels from people's trust in an industry or company, their confidence in governance, and views on procedural and distributional fairness (trust models) are designed for quantitative analysis, and they have been successful in explaining social acceptance levels for mining. In this paper, we use survey data to test whether the factors in trust models can also explain the level of local social acceptance for salmon farming in Norway. From the structural equation modelling analysis, we conclude that these models at best have limited explanatory power in our case. We then develop an alternative model to analyse social acceptance, where factors of perception and attitudes and respondents' individual characteristics are tested as direct regression paths to influence level of acceptance. This model explains the variation in the data well. The factors that most strongly affect the level of acceptance, and which industry or authorities also can influence, are the perception of to what degree aquaculture is environmentally sustainable, whether the industry acts according to society's expectations, and if the industry is trustworthy. Practical implications for the industry and governance are discussed.
•Social licence to operate (SLO) is studied in the context of Norwegian aquaculture industry.•Models developed in mining literature do not fit the data well, a simpler model provides a better fit.•Scale, structure and role in the local economy are among the sector-specific factors explaining the result.•Country-specific factors related to governance also influence SLO model in this case.
Solar and wind energy are expected to play a key role in creating a climate-neutral Europe by 2050 and decarbonizing energy production in general, albeit requiring significant deployment. This ...presupposes that the population accepts such energy sources, thus necessitates understanding how people perceive energy systems. Unlike the abundant literature about wind energy, social acceptance of solar energy has received less attention, especially concerning large solar installations. Opinion polls indicate that solar energy enjoys a high level of socio-political acceptance and is preferred to other renewables, although it is unclear whether this acceptance persists as the technology is deployed on a large scale. This paper helps close this gap by describing the results of a representative survey (n = 601) conducted using a between-subject design to examine how attitudes of the public towards solar energy vary based on the size of installations, how the latter compare to attitudes towards wind energy, and what the role of affect is in the former. Results reveal that the stronger preference for solar power decreases to a similar level as that for wind energy when comparing installation of similar sizes, highlighting that solar energy installations may not easily be scaled up. The study also shows that affect plays an important role in forming people’s attitudes towards wind and solar, especially concerning large-scale installations. This underlines the need for policymakers and project developers, who aim to deploy renewables on a large scale, to attend to the affective component of decision-making.
•Between-subject design survey with a representative sample (n = 601).•Positive attitudes towards solar energy are mediated by installation size.•Solar parks are less positively perceived than rooftop PV installations.•When comparing installations of similar sizes, solar is not more popular than wind energy.•Large installations evoke stronger emotions, which in turn influence attitudes.
The presented issues concern the analysis of barriers limiting large-scale underground hydrogen storage. Prospects for the rapid development of the hydrogen economy, the role of hydrogen in a ...carbon-neutral economy, and the production, use, and demand for hydrogen today and in the perspective of 2050 are indicated. The decreasing costs of producing ‘green’ hydrogen, rising prices of CO2 emission allowances, and the development of carbon capture and storage technology will have a significant impact on the rapid deployment of underground hydrogen storage (UHS). Underground storage of large quantities of hydrogen from surplus renewable energy production is of interest to government institutions interested in the construction of hydrogen storage sites, geological services, large renewable energy sources electricity producers, and chemical and petrochemical plants. It offers the possibility of long-term, safe storage of this gas at relatively low costs.
The prospect of quick implementation of UHS technology on an industrial scale is associated with the definition and overcoming of numerous barriers and obstacles that stand in its way today. Based on the recent literature, they are discussed in the present article. The following have been identified as significant barriers to the implementation of UHS: geological and reservoir constraints, technical and safety limitations, legal barriers, conflicts of interest, and social acceptance of underground hydrogen storage. The most important obstacles in this regard have been identified.
•Interactions of H2 with rocks and fluids in storage sites must be recognized.•The insufficiently recognized impact of hydrogen properties on storage safety.•The lack of H2 storage regulations may inhibit the development of this technology.•Knowledge of underground H2 storage is essential for public acceptance.
Incorrect organic waste management can lead to several environmental and health threats. The literature shows that municipalities are adopting several strategies to reduce the improper disposal of ...organic waste. In 2019, Florianópolis, Brazil, became the first Brazilian state capital to approve a law on mandatory organic waste separation and composting, the Florianópolis composting law (FCL). Nevertheless, the successful implementation of this new regulation relies on acceptance among urban stakeholders and civil society. The role of social acceptance has not been investigated when dealing with new waste management regulations. To this end, 37 qualitative interviews with local stakeholders were conducted to determine the key factors influencing the acceptance of the FCL by analyzing stakeholders' perceptions of the relevant risks, benefits, hindering and promoting factors. The results show that the law could represent an important first step toward a sustainable municipal solid waste management system; however, several risks may arise in the absence of adequate monitoring systems. These risks are mainly linked to water contamination and health issues due to harmful insect proliferation. Furthermore, even though Florianópolis society seems culturally open, the lack of infrastructure and investments in the city could hinder the effectiveness of the law. Strategies for improving the law's effectiveness should be focused on supporting the existing formal and informal composting initiatives that have become widespread in recent decades. This could lead to a decentralized organic waste management system that empowers local initiatives and reduces the initial costs of implementing new composting systems and increases the separation rates at the household level.
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•Stakeholders perceive benefits as well as risks related to the new policy (FCL).•Main perceived risks are: environment contamination and tax increase.•Main perceived benefits are: fertilizer provision and public costs reduction.•Supporting a decentralized waste management model can reduce initial FCL costs.•Well planned infrastructures and investments can support FCL effectiveness.
This review focuses on how culture can complicate and impede attempts at promoting more efficient, more sustainable, and often more affordable forms of mobility as well as energy use in homes and ...buildings. In simpler terms: it illustrates the cultural barriers to a low-carbon, low-energy future across 28 countries. Rather than focus on energy supply, it deals intently with energy end-use, demand, and consumption. In terms of low-carbon transport and mobility, it examines the cultural barriers to aggressive driving, speeding, and eco-driving; automated vehicles; and ridesharing and carpooling. In terms of cooking and building energy use, it examines the cultural barriers to solar home systems, improved cookstoves, and energy efficient heating, cooling, and hot water practices. For each case, the review synthesizes a wide range of studies showing that culture can operate as a salient but often unacknowledged barrier to low-carbon transitions as well as sustainability transitions more generally. The paper concludes with recommendations aimed at catalyzing the effectiveness and efficiency with which policymakers, researchers and practitioners are able to research, develop, demonstrate and deploy culturally appropriate technologies and policies for a low-carbon transition.
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•Defines culture as the ideas, customs, and social behavior of a particular people or society.•Shows how culture can act as a barrier, impediment, and obstacle to low-carbon transitions across 28 countries.•Reveals cultural barriers to eco-driving, automated vehicles, and ridesharing.•Illustrates cultural barriers to solar home systems, cleaner/improved cookstoves, and efficient buildings.•Suggests the positioning of culture in policies, interventions and future research .
The rapid uptake of renewable energy technologies in recent decades has increased the demand of energy researchers, policymakers and energy planners for reliable data on the spatial distribution of ...their costs and potentials. For onshore wind energy this has resulted in an active research field devoted to analysing these resources for regions, countries or globally. A particular thread of this research attempts to go beyond purely technical or spatial restrictions and determine the realistic, feasible or actual potential for wind energy. Motivated by these developments, this paper reviews methods and assumptions for analysing geographical, technical, economic and, finally, feasible onshore wind potentials. We address each of these potentials in turn, including aspects related to land eligibility criteria, energy meteorology, and technical developments of wind turbine characteristics such as power density, specific rotor power and spacing aspects. Economic aspects of potential assessments are central to future deployment and are discussed on a turbine and system level covering levelized costs depending on locations, and the system integration costs which are often overlooked in such analyses. Non-technical approaches include scenicness assessments of the landscape, constraints due to regulation or public opposition, expert and stakeholder workshops, willingness to pay/accept elicitations and socioeconomic cost-benefit studies. For each of these different potential estimations, the state of the art is critically discussed, with an attempt to derive best practice recommendations and highlight avenues for future research.
•Review of over 300 studies on large-scale onshore wind potential assessments.•Analysis of geographic, technical, economic and ‘feasible’ potentials.•Identify weaknesses in methods and best practice examples.•Methods could improve transparency, validation, and sensitivities.•Further interdisciplinary research required on ‘feasible’ potentials.
Theories of perceived overqualification have tended to focus on employees’ job-related responses to account for effects on performance. We offer an alternative perspective and theorize that perceived ...overqualification could influence work performance through a relational mechanism. We propose that relational skills, in the form of interpersonal influence of overqualified employees, determine their tendency to experience social acceptance and, thus, engage in positive work-related behaviors. We tested this relational model across two studies using time-lagged, multisource data. In Study 1, the results indicated that for employees high on interpersonal influence, perceived overqualification was positively related to self-reported social acceptance, whereas for employees low on interpersonal influence, the relationship was negative. Social acceptance, in turn, was positively related to in-role job performance, interpersonal altruism, and team member proactivity evaluated by supervisors. In Study 2, we focused on peer-reported social acceptance and found that the indirect relationships between perceived overqualification and supervisor-reported behavioral outcomes via social acceptance were negative when interpersonal influence was low and nonsignificant when interpersonal influence was high. The implications of the general findings are discussed.
As green hydrogen plays an increasingly pivotal role in shaping sustainable economies and society, understanding public acceptance of hydrogen becomes imperative for fostering social support towards ...hydrogen energy transitions. This study employs a survey-based structural equation modelling method to analyse public perceptions and acceptance of hydrogen technology, fuel cell vehicles, and refuelling infrastructure based on technology acceptance theory. The results highlight the positive impact of the perceived usefulness of hydrogen energy and refuelling stations on individual acceptance levels. A notable discovery reveals that perceived risk consequences significantly influence individuals’ acceptance of nearby refuelling infrastructure, whereas perceived risk likelihood does not. Moreover, this study establishes psychological connections among diverse dimensions of hydrogen acceptance: technology acceptance is found to correlate positively with acceptance of refuelling infrastructure, indicating a pathway for cultivating public acceptance from cognitive to practical levels. The acceptance of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles exhibits mediating effects on this pathway, signifying mutual benefits for stakeholders in promoting hydrogen mobility and establishing refuelling infrastructure.
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•Latest trends in multidimensional hydrogen acceptance in Japan.•Increased perceived usefulness enhances technology and infrastructure acceptance.•Perceived risk consequences diminish acceptance of hydrogen infrastructure.•Fuel cell vehicle adoption mediates technology and infrastructure acceptance.•Pathways for cultivating public acceptance from cognitive to practical levels.
As part of its efforts to secure a ‘net-zero society’, the UK government will take a strategic decision on the role of hydrogen in decarbonising homes within the next years. While scholars have ...recently advanced the social science research agenda on hydrogen technology acceptance, studies are yet to engage with the prospective dynamics of adopting ‘hydrogen homes’. In response, this study examines the perceived adoption potential of hydrogen heating and cooking technologies, as evaluated through the eyes of consumer. Engaging with behavioural and market acceptance, this research draws on data from a broadly nationally representative online survey to examine the influence of safety, technological, economic, environmental, and emotional factors on the domestic hydrogen transition in the UK context. The analysis follows a multi-stage empirical approach, integrating findings from partial least squares structural equation and necessary condition analysis to crystallise insights on this emergent subject. At this juncture, perceived adoption potential may hinge primarily on emotional, environmental, safety, and to a lesser extent, technological perspectives. However, consumers have an expressed preference for hydrogen heating over hydrogen cooking, with perceived boiler performance emerging as a necessary condition for enabling adoption potential. At the formative phase of the transition, risks associated with energy insecurity and fuel poverty exceed concerns over purchasing and running costs. Nevertheless, economic factors remain less critical during the pre-deployment phase of the innovation-decision process. Across the full sample, simple slope analysis highlights the moderating effects of gender, age, and housing tenure. Moreover, statistically significant differences from both a sufficiency- and necessity-based perspective are detected between male property owners aged 55+ and female mortgage owners 18–34 years old. By bridging the knowledge gap between social acceptance and adoption intention, this contribution reinforces the need for consumer engagement in the hydrogen economy, advocating for more fine-grained, mixed-methods analyses of technology acceptance dynamics to support decarbonisation strategies.
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•Economic factors constrain the perceived adoption potential of hydrogen homes.•The emotional dimension of hydrogen acceptance is highly influential.•Perceived adoption potential is contingent on safety and environmental perspectives.•Gender, age, and housing tenure status are potentially powerful moderators.•The role of hydrogen cooking warrants justification ahead of policy decisions.
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