Household Technology Adoption Research Articles

Intrahousehold preference heterogeneity and demand for labor‐saving agricultural technology

AbstractEvaluations of agricultural technologies rarely consider the implications of how adoption may alter the labor allocation of different individuals within a household. We examine intrahousehold decision‐making dynamics that shape smallholder households' decision to use mechanical rice transplanting (MRT), a technology that disproportionately influences demand for women's labor. To study the adoption decision, we experimentally estimate the willingness to pay for MRT services both at the individual and household level. We find that women value MRT more than men, especially when they participate in transplanting on their own farms. This preference heterogeneity is evident in the unconditional differences between women's and men's valuation and differences conditional on their individual observable characteristics. Despite having stronger preferences for MRT, women have less influence on the household's technology adoption decision than men. This differential influence over the MRT adoption decision reflects the intrahousehold power structure: in households where women have less control over assets, they also have less influence over the MRT adoption decision. Our results highlight how technological changes interact with unobserved, gender‐based intrahousehold power relations to influence agricultural production decisions and, by extension, the gendered allocation of labor and welfare of women.

The Effect of Household Technology on Child Health: Evidence from China's "Home Appliances Going to the Countryside" Policy.

This paper examined the effects of household technology on child health using evidence from the Chinese government’s “Home Appliances Going to the Countryside” policy. A difference-in-differences approach was employed to examine 2000 to 2015 data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey data from before the policy in 2007 to after the policy was implemented. It was found that the policy-induced household technology adoption significantly increased child health, especially girls’ health. Various sensitivity tests proved this finding to be robust. The potential paths through which household technology improved child health were also examined from which it was found that parental care for children and increased nutrition were effective paths between household technology and health status. These results could guide policymakers when constructing and developing a supportive child health system in China.

Women’s labor force participation and household technology adoption

We examine how women’s employment leads to household technology adoption in the context of mid-century United States. Using World War II factories and male casualty rates as an instrument for female labor demand, we find that the rise in women’s labor force participation between 1940 and 1950 increased appliance ownership by 25 percent in the average county. This result holds in both panel and cross-sectional estimates, and for two different technologies. We find that increases in household income associated with women’s employment is a salient channel and that the results are not driven by changes in the skill profile or employment outcomes of men, or migration patterns. Together, the evidence is consistent with a historiography that suggests that as women went to work, they adopted appliances with new purchasing and bargaining power.

Intention to Use IoT by Aged Indian Consumers

ABSTRACT This study identifies the determinants which impact the intention to use the Internet of Things (IoT) enabled devices by the aged consumers of India for household purposes. With the help of the Model of Adoption of Technology in Households (MATH), a conceptual model has been developed. The model has been extended by considering two moderators (age and gender). It has been ascertained that the explanative power of the model after consideration of two moderators has been enhanced. Ten constructs of MATH have been considered which were found relevant to this study. The validation of the greater explainability by including two moderators in this modified MATH is considered as a theoretical contribution of this study. This study provides insight to the policy makers to understand how the aged consumers of India can be motivated to use IoT-enabled devices for their household purposes that would eventually improve their quality of life.

Women's Labor Force Participation and Household Technology Adoption

Women's Labor Force Participation and Household Technology Adoption

Women's Labor Force Participation and Household Technology Adoption

We examine how women's employment leads to household technology adoption in the context of mid-century United States. We posit that this relationship is strongest for households with low earning capacity whose consumption-leisure tradeoff crosses a threshold as women go to work. Using WWII factories to instrument for female labor demand, we find that a standard deviation increase in female labor force participation increases washing machine ownership by 0.44 standard deviations, which is driven primarily by counties in the lowest pre-war education quintile. Changes to household income, as well as the substitution of paid domestic labor with appliances, are important channels.

Understanding Fundamental Phenomena Affecting the Water Conservation Technology Adoption of Residential Consumers Using Agent-Based Modeling

More than one billion people will face water scarcity within the next ten years due to climate change and unsustainable water usage, and this number is only expected to grow exponentially in the future. At current water use rates, supply-side demand management is no longer an effective way to combat water scarcity. Instead, many municipalities and water agencies are looking to demand-side solutions to prevent major water loss. While changing conservation behavior is one demand-based strategy, there is a growing movement toward the adoption of water conservation technology as a way to solve water resource depletion. Installing technology into one’s household requires additional costs and motivation, creating a gap between the overall potential households that could adopt this technology, and how many actually do. This study identified and modeled a variety of demographic and household characteristics, social network influence, and external factors such as water price and rebate policy to see their effect on residential water conservation technology adoption. Using Agent-based Modeling and data obtained from the City of Miami Beach, the coupled effects of these factors were evaluated to examine the effectiveness of different pathways towards the adoption of more water conservation technologies. The results showed that income growth and water pricing structure, more so than any of the demographic or building characteristics, impacted household adoption of water conservation technologies. The results also revealed that the effectiveness of rebate programs depends on conservation technology cost and the affluence of the community. Rebate allocation did influence expensive technology adoption, with the potential to increase the adoption rate by 50%. Additionally, social network connections were shown to have an impact on the rate of adoption independent of price strategy or rebate status. These findings will lead the way for municipalities and other water agencies to more strategically implement interventions to encourage household technology adoption based on the characteristics of their communities.

Economics of household technology adoption in developing countries: Evidence from solar technology adoption in rural India

Innovation is one of the most important drivers of economic development. Even in developing countries, households have access to a wide array of new technologies. However, factors affecting households' technology adoption decisions remain poorly understood. Using data on solar microgrid adoption from rural India, we investigate the determinants of household technology adoption. We offer all households identical solar products to avoid bias from product differentiation. Households pay a monthly fee for technology use, allowing us to abstract away from credit constraints as a barrier to adoption. The results show that household expenditures and savings as well as the household head's entrepreneurial attitude are strong predictors of adoption. In contrast, past fuel expenditures, risk acceptance, and community trust are not associated with technology adoption decisions. These findings suggest new directions for research on the microeconomics of household technology adoption, which is critical for sustainable development among the poor in developing countries.

Intra-household bargaining over household technology adoption

We examine the barriers to adoption of improved cook stoves (ICSs) in rural India, using a large, nationally representative dataset. We develop a collective household model to derive testable hypotheses about whether women’s intra-household influence, together with their relatively strong marginal preference for ICSs, affects adoption. Using a joint adoption-influence econometric model, we find compelling evidence that women’s influence over intra-household decisions significantly increases adoption. We further distinguish between alternative sources of women’s influence, and argue that our distinction has potential implications for ICS dissemination policies. We find that while there is significant variation in women’s influence across rural India due to cultural and other sociological factors, the effect of intra-household influence on adoption has a significant bargaining power component. Our results suggest that ICS programs may be able to increase adoption by marketing stoves in ways that empower women.

Broadband Internet adoption and utilization in the inner city: A comparison of competing theories

Factors influencing the adoption and utilization of technology have been extensively studied within a variety of theoretical paradigms but questions about their parsimony and their integrations with and contributions to overarching models of human behavior have been questioned. The present research employed a mail survey of inner city residents of a Midwestern state to analyze the sufficiency of the social cognitive theory (SCT) model of broadband adoption by testing it against variables drawn from the Model of Adoption of Technology in Households, Diffusion of Innovations, and the Unified Theory of the Acceptance and Utilization of Technology-2. The variables tested explained little additional variance in broadband intentions after accounting for SCT and demographic variables, arguing for the superior parsimony of the SCT model. Price sensitivity, often overlooked in adoption research, was a significant predictor of broadband intentions and its effect was interpreted through the SCT framework.

Investigating the Factors Affecting Residential Consumer Adoption of Broadband in India

1. Amir Manzoor[1][1] 1. 1Bahria University, Karachi 1. Amir Manzoor, Management Sciences Department, Bahria University, 13 National Stadium Road, Karachi, Pakistan 75300. Email: amirmanzoor{at}yahoo.com This study aims to explore in detail the factors that affect the consumer behavioral intention to adopt broadband Internet in a developing country perspective. Various attitudinal, normative, and control constructs were identified and investigated for their possible influence on broadband Internet adoption. The empirical data for this study were collected using a self-administered questionnaire that included items related to various attitudinal, normative, and control constructs. Descriptive statistics and regression analysis were used to test these constructs for their possible influence on Indian consumers’ adoption of broadband Internet. The findings suggest that perceived ease of use (PE), social outcomes (SO), hedonic outcomes (HO), service quality (SQ), facilitating conditions resources (FCR), and self-efficacy (SE) were very significant predictors of Indian consumers’ behavioral intention to adopt broadband Internet. This study has multifold significance. The integrated research framework used in this study is an extension of previous well-established research models (such as Model of Adoption of Technology in Households [MATH], Diffusion of Innovation [DOI], and Theory of Planned Behavior [TPB]) and provides an enhanced comprehension of broadband Internet by the Indian household consumers. [1]: #aff-1

Use of Technology in the Household

Since the 1980s, personal computer ownership has become ubiquitous, and people are increasingly using household technologies for a wide variety of purposes. Extensive IS research has resulted in useful models to explain workplace technology acceptance and household technology adoption. Studies have also found the determinants underlying technology acceptance in the workplace and household adoption are very different from the determinants of household use. Thus, while a great deal is known about workplace acceptance and household adoption, less is known about household technology use. As home computer use becomes prevalent, fewer households are left to adopt and it becomes increasingly important to understand household use. This paper presents the results of an exploratory study of 202 users of household personal computers to test a new model derived from the Model of Acceptance of Technology in the Household (MATH) and another behavior model based on a Decomposed Theory of Planned Behavior.

Household technology adoption in a global marketplace: Incorporating the role of espoused cultural values

This paper extends prior research in household technology adoption by incorporating the role of espoused cultural values. Specifically, we theorize that espoused cultural values---individualism/collectivism, masculinity/femininity, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and long-term orientation--play an important role in affecting consumers' behaviors by altering consumers' belief structures--attitudinal beliefs, normative beliefs, and control beliefs. Our theoretical model predicts that the impact of consumers' belief structures on household technology adoption intention varies across consumers with different cultural values. Propositions are provided to explain how different cultural mechanisms moderate the relationships between consumers' beliefs and household technology adoption intention. The paper concludes with theoretical implications, future research directions, and practical implications.

Household technology adoption, use, and impacts: Past, present, and future

Since the 1980s, researchers have been studying the phenomenon associated with technology being diffused to the household. In this paper, three themes in that stream of research, specifically adoption, use, and impacts, are explored. Key studies from prior research within each theme are discussed and directions for future research are offered. The directions for future research range from investigating adoption issues associated with the digital divide to understanding the impacts of new technology and social networking sites on individuals and families. The evolving nature of the technology continues to offer interesting research directions and challenges, with the study of unintended consequences of technology use presenting, perhaps, the greatest opportunities.

Household Technology Use: Integrating Household Life Cycle and the Model of Adoption of Technology in Households

Recently, the model of adoption of technology in households (MATH) was developed and tested in the context of household personal computer (PC) adoption. In this study, we apply MATH to predict personal computer (PC) use. We conducted a nationwide survey including 370 households that owned at least one PC. Results indicate that attitudinal beliefs are extremely important in determining use of a PC in the household. In contrast to previous work examining adopters, normative and control beliefs were not significant in predicting use. Furthermore, several determinants of adoption that were important at different stages of the household life cycle were found nonsignificant in predicting use for the same stages of the household life cycle. Overall, the results demonstrate that the belief structure for household PC use is different from that of household PC adoption. Further, the results provide additional evidence regarding the importance of including household life cycle in studies of household technology adoption and use.

Government Programs and Diffusion of Innovations in Taiwan: An Empirical Study of Household Technology Adoption Rates

ABSTRACT This research mirrors Olshavsky's (1980) groundbreaking study by using penetration data for household technologies in Taiwan. Results support conventional wisdom that adoption rates are increasing over time. Moreover, rates were negatively associated with price. This research goes beyond Olshavsky by examining whether adoption rates differ across geographical regions types (i.e., rural, townships, and metropolitan). Adoption rates for nine household technologies at the three geographical types are not significantly different. Support is lent to the proposition that government rural development policies promoting education and physical infrastructures have fostered relatively equal diffusion patterns of household technologies in Taiwan.

Model of Adoption of Technology in Households: A Baseline Model Test and Extension Incorporating Household Life Cycle

Individual adoption of technology has been studied extensively in the workplace. Far less attention has been paid to adoption of technology in the household. In this paper, we performed the first quantitative test of the recently developed model of adoption of technology in households (MATH). Further, we proposed and tested a theoretical extension of MATH by arguing that key demographic characteristics that vary across different life cycle stages would play moderating roles. Survey responses were collected from 746 U.S. households that had not yet adopted a personal computer. The results showed that the integrated model, including MATH constructs and life cycle characteristics, explained 74 percent of the variance in intention to adopt a PC for home use, a significant increase over baseline MATH that explained 50 percent of the variance. Finally, we compared the importance of various factors across household life cycle stages and gained a more refined understanding of the moderating role of household life cycle stage.