The householder is king: Engendering householder participation in bridging the performance gap in homes

Abstract

Smart technologies are useful for performance monitoring i.e. to gather real-life evidence to address the design-performance gap, reduce emissions, optimise energy use, address energy inequalities, empower and engage citizens. Smart home performance monitoring therefore has wider connotations of societal utility. However, current technology adoption models do not address this question of societal value. This study investigates the correlations between acceptance, adoption, affordance, and active citizenship as the basis for householder participation in smart performance monitoring ‘for the common good’. The aim is to propose an integrated framework for engendering householders' participation in bridging the performance gap. The research design combined theoretical and methodological triangulation. First, it reviewed and consolidated existing technology adoption models to establish a conceptual household participation framework. Then, a survey was deployed until 972 nationally representative sample was achieved. Lastly, Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to test goodness-of-fit hypotheses, to validate the framework. The result confirms that smart home performance monitoring implementation promote acceptance first by addressing citizenship/active participation factors. Therefore, policy initiatives should prioritise issues of trust, capacity for sustainable, social and technology innovativeness, and cost-benefit. Then resolve affordance factors such as perceived cost, performance expectancy, data security and perceived savings to promote adoption. Significantly, hedonic value, and social influence were not proven as effective for promoting participation. Therefore, the proposed participation framework contributes new theoretical and strategic insights into how smart home performance monitoring can be deployed to address the performance gap and aid the transition to net zero homes.