Spur Adoption Research Articles

The enteric methane emission conundrum: U.S. beef cattle producer adoption of climate-focused technology

Cattle are ruminant livestock that emit enteric methane (CH4) as part of their natural digestive process. The U.S. beef cattle industry is receiving pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including methane. The U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef has set a target for the U.S. feedlot sector to reduce emissions by 10 % per pound of beef by 2030. Feed additive 3-Nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP) has been developed to help mitigate methane emissions. While not yet approved for use in U.S. beef production, adoption of 3-NOP in U.S. feedlots upon approval remains unknown as no widespread economic incentive currently exists in the marketplace to spur adoption. The objectives of this study are: (1) to determine potential 3-NOP adoption by U.S. feedlot cattle producers given various marketplace incentives and (2) to explore how differing approaches to reducing emissions from beef production to achieve sector targets impact social welfare. Our study uses data from a U.S. feedlot producer survey to estimate willingness-to-adopt (WTA) measures. Regression results are used to map potential adoption of 3-NOP given various market and policy scenarios. The survey sample is then split into small producers (<2000 head sold in last 12 months) and large producers (2000+ head sold in last 12 months) to determine differences in WTA based on operation size. We find that producers prefer incentives in the form of processor premiums over government subsidies. The incentive level needed to spur adoption increases as the implementation cost of 3-NOP increases and decreases if net profit estimations are included in the messaging. On average, small producers require a higher incentive to adopt 3-NOP than large producers. Improving the emissions reduction efficacy of 3-NOP reduces the level of incentive needed to achieve aggregate emissions targets. The least expensive avenue to achieve emissions reduction targets results in greater outlays to large producers as compared to small producers. The marginal cost to society of feeding 3-NOP to an additional steer or heifer in the feedlot increases with each animal. As such, it may be that improving the efficacy of 3-NOP through increased investment in research and development is less costly than spurring more producers to adopt the additive in their feed rations. Ultimately, producers, processors, beef consumers, voting residents, taxpayers, and policymakers all have influence in shaping how the beef industry tackles the emissions reduction conundrum.

How Demand Shocks “Jumpstart” Technological Ecosystems and Commercialization: Evidence from the Global Electric Vehicle Industry

We examine how exogenous demand shocks overcome ecosystem bottlenecks in the commercialization of an emergent technology. We argue that demand shocks that spur new technology adoption by niche users pull “hub” firms into country technology markets, despite ecosystem bottlenecks, thereby serving to “jumpstart” the process of ecosystem development and technology commercialization. By analyzing global electric vehicle markets over the period 2008–2017, we find that extreme weather events such as abnormal heat-related events spur adoption of electric vehicles by end users, thereby propelling automotive or hub firms’ entry into country technology markets, and the subsequent shift of their electric vehicle product portfolios toward the more radical version of the technology. Notably, such demand shocks propel firms’ commercialization strategy, despite ecosystem bottlenecks such as the lack of regulatory and economic inducements for adoption, relative absence of complements, and product market differences. After entry, entrant firms’ electric vehicle product portfolios transition from hybrids toward radical technology products and investments in complements, albeit contingent on their competitive market position in the legacy technology. We discuss the implications of these findings concerning the uptake of demand shocks, and their robustness to modeling choices, technological generations across extended timeframes, potential mediating forces, and boundary conditions owing to firm and country-market heterogeneity. Supplemental Material: The online appendices are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/stsc.2022.0075 .

Conductive polymer composites-enable self-sensing twisted string actuators

Twisted string actuators (TSAs) are innovative linear soft actuators that can mimic natural muscle contraction. However, obtaining feedback on their stroke requires cumbersome external sensors that compromise their compliance. We addressed this by developing self-sensing strings using conductive polymer composites (CPCs). The CPC strings exhibit electrical resistance changes in response to strain, enabling stroke sensing by the strings themselves. We fabricated CPCs strings with varying concentrations of multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs). Characterization revealed excellent conductivity, tensile strength exceeding 30 N, tunable strain sensitivity via MWCNTs concentration variation, as well as stable and repeatable strain-dependent resistance changes. Optimization via a high-strength core fiber enabled the CPCs strings to withstand over 6[Formula: see text]kg loading with enhanced stroke and minimal resistance variation. We achieved at least a 97.8% linear correlation between resistance change rate and contraction rate in twisting experiments. This research provides a self-contained stroke sensor compatible with high-load soft TSAs, overcoming limitations of external sensors. The simple yet effective sensing mechanism could spur adoption of TSA in robotics.

Motivations to use multifunctional public goods in organizations: using agent-based modeling to explore differential uses of enterprise social media

Abstract This work conceptualizes enterprise social media (ESM) as a multifunctional public good that both supports communication that connects users directly and allows users to contribute or access communal information. We show how differing motivations to use an ESM—connective or communal goals—interact with individuals’ perceptions of activity on a platform, and the consequences this has for individual participation decisions and the viability of the digital space. We begin with a case study of the adoption of an ESM platform within a single organization. We then apply findings from this case study, combined with broader theories of technology adoption, to create agent-based simulations. We show that the connective and communal aspects of an ESM complement each other and can spur adoption; we also identify the importance of information decay as a variable influencing collective adoption. We end with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of our results.

Promoting agricultural technologies with positive environmental effects: Evidence on tree planting in Indonesia

In the presence of market inefficiencies and missing information, agricultural technologies have often been introduced via subsidies to accelerate diffusion and spur adoption. Yet, for agricultural technologies that mainly generate positive environmental effects, it is not clear how subsidies affect adoption, maintenance, and additional investments. This study introduces native tree seedlings through two different distribution mechanisms to foster tree planting in an oil palm hotspot in Indonesia. In treatment one, oil palm farmers receive information about native tree planting and three different native tree seedlings for free (subsidy treatment). In treatment two, oil palm farmers receive the same information and the opportunity to buy three different native tree seedlings through an auction (price treatment). The results show that conditional on receiving the seedlings the uptake of the technology is similar between the two treatments, suggesting that there is no strong selection effect in the price treatment. For the full sample, the subsidy treatment is associated with higher tree planting activities. The farmers in the subsidy treatment apply less maintenance to their trees, but the number of surviving trees is still higher than in the price treatment. Finally, the subsidy treatment tends to be associated with lower additional planting efforts.

A Preference Analysis for a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Electricity Trading Platform in South Korea

The Korean government is committed to advance the country’s energy transition to greener energy by increasing the share of renewable electricity to 20 percent by 2030 and to 30–35 percent by 2040. Achieving these goals will necessitate flexibility in energy markets as well as innovative business models and technological solutions. Peer-to-peer (P2P) electricity trading platforms (ETPs) are rapidly gaining traction, as they enable the integration of distributed energy sources into power systems. This study explores whether South Koreans are willing to participate in a hypothetical P2P ETP, which allows prosumers (who both consume and produce electricity) to trade electricity surpluses with their neighbours or with KEPCO (Korea Electric Power Corporation). We employ a choice experiment (CE) to examine respondent heterogeneous preferences and their willingness to pay (WTP) for a hypothetical P2P ETP in South Korea. Our findings indicate that two-thirds of total respondents in our CE are in favour of a P2P ETP if available. Cost savings and security play an essential role in respondent preferences for a P2P ETP business model. Respondents also prefer to trade renewable electricity with KEPCO rather than with other individuals. Per our statistical estimations, respondent WTP for a P2P ETP was estimated at USD 55.68/per month. Our analysis strongly recommends increasing consumer awareness of P2P ETPs to spur adoption. Energy trading platforms that are anchored in secure block chain technology can generate cost savings as well as support the country’s policy tilt toward green energy.

Designing Dynamic Subsidies to Spur Adoption of New Technologies

We analyze the efficient subsidy for durable good technologies. We theoretically demonstrate that a policy maker faces a tension between intertemporally price discriminating by designing a subsidy that increases over time and taking advantage of future technological progress by designing a subsidy that decreases over time. Using dynamic estimates of household preferences for residential solar in California, we show that the efficient subsidy increases over time. The regulator’s spending quintuples when households anticipate future technological progress and future subsidies.

Integrated Planning of Operational Maintenance Programs for Water and Gas Distribution Networks

Drinking water and natural gas are essential goods provided by municipal distribution networks. In order for there to be a reliable provision of such commodities, infrastructure managers must regularly dispatch vehicles to perform tasks such as valve and hydrant inspections and meter replacements. As public concerns about sustainability grow, managers must look for ways to reduce carbon emissions. This, however, should be done without jeopardizing service. One conceivable approach is to train staff to perform additional maintenance tasks so that combined work packages can be carried out. This would require resources to be spent in different areas, such as supplemental worker training and organizational restructuring of the utility. Infrastructure managers must thus weigh the expected efficiency gains against the associated costs. The infrastructure asset management process combined with digitalization are powerful tools to assess such questions. Unfortunately, digitalization in the infrastructure sector lags behind other sectors of the economy. To bridge this gap, real-world examples are needed to further spur adoption. This paper addresses this need with a methodology and case study for infrastructure managers of water and gas networks. Specifically, this paper presents a methodology to quantify the resource requirements of operational maintenance programs for a large municipality. As utilities plan maintenance routes differently, four algorithms are used to model the resource requirements of the status quo. The effect of prioritization as well as frequency of inspections/replacements is considered.

Using a randomized controlled trial to develop conservation strategies on rented farmlands

AbstractAddressing the environmental impacts of large‐scale agriculture requires innovative approaches to conservation program design and evaluation. We used a randomized controlled trial and a sample of 2225 landowners in the Mississippi River Basin to test a new conservation program that targets a growing but overlooked population—nonoperating landowners (NOLs). To spur adoption of conservation practices on farmland rented out by NOLs, the program provided NOLs with ready‐to‐use lease language and a financial incentive. The program's design was informed by field work, the behavioral science literature, and the social science literature on barriers to conservation on farmland. We cannot detect an effect on conservation practices from the lease language or the incentive. The take‐up rate for the incentive was one‐tenth the expected rate based on NOL responses to a hypothetical offer in a survey. The results underscore the importance of assessing program performance by rigorously testing programs in real conservation settings.

DeSI: A Decentralized Software-Defined Network Architecture for Internet Exchange Points

Applications of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) to the Internet Routing hold great promises for supporting the ever-growing performance requirements of Internet applications. The inherent centralization of these SDN approaches on the Internet routing comes with the following concerns: 1) <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">privacy</i> , the operators are reluctant to share private routing information, 2) <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">separation of responsibilities</i> , the Internet eXchange Point (IXP) running the centralized controller is involved in the routing and forwarding at too many levels, and 3) <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">scalability</i> , the growing number of IP prefixes routed on the Internet (i.e., hundreds of thousands) pose extremely high requirements at both the control- and data-planes, e.g., several minutes for policy compilations and a large number of forwarding rules, in SDN. In this paper, we propose <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">DeSI</small> to apply SDN at IXPs by considering the above concerns. We break this centralization by devising an SDN-enabled IXP architecture in which each member connects to an SDN-enabled IXP through its SDN controller and SDN switches, thus tackling privacy, scalability, and separation of concerns issues. To spur adoption, we introduce an expressive, yet simple, language to configure the routing policies of the members. Our evaluation shows that <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">DeSI</small> needs <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">n</i> times fewer forwarding table entries for an IXP in which <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">n</i> is the number of IXP members. <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">DeSI</small> also gives the possibility of slowly migrating to the SDN-enabled IXPs.

Social Learning and Solar Photovoltaic Adoption

Growing literature points to the effectiveness of leveraging social interactions and nudges to spur adoption of prosocial behaviors. This study investigates a large-scale behavioral intervention designed to actively leverage social learning and peer interactions to encourage adoption of residential solar photovoltaic systems. Municipalities choose a solar installer offering group pricing and undertake an informational campaign driven by volunteer ambassadors. We find a causal treatment effect of 37 installations per municipality from the campaigns and no evidence of harvesting or persistence. The intervention also lowers installation prices. Randomized controlled trials based on the intervention show that selection into the program is important, whereas group pricing is not. Our results suggest that the program provided economies of scale and lowered consumer acquisition costs, leading to low-cost emission reductions. This paper was accepted by Matthew Shum, marketing.

A Safe Harbor for Ransomware Payments: Protecting Stakeholders, Hardening Targets, and Defending National Security

The United States is under ransomware siege. Victims range from small municipalities to non-profits to multi-national corporations and governments. The law is struggling to respond. Few entities, crippled by a ransomware attack, can refuse to pay. Not paying the ransom may result in significant harm, including financial ruin or even loss of life. Paying a ransom, however, is likely to generate attacks on other targets. Paying may not even lead to recovery of the data as promised. By definition, paying ransoms transfers value to criminals, and that is against many laws. But more than simple illegality is at issue. While ransomware hackers may be lone criminals or infamous cyber-gangs, they may also be hostile foreign countries, or non-state actors such as terrorist groups. Ransomware and other digital threats have the potential to compromise U.S. critical infrastructure. Strategically significant economic transactions have long been prohibited or highly regulated. In the wake of the September 11th attacks, the discovery and prevention of terrorist financing became a key pillar of U.S. security architecture. Under this regime, paying a ransom, thereby aiding the “enemy,” may trigger liability. Regulators have threatened enforcement of sanctions and anti-money laundering laws not only against ransomware victims who pay, but also against third-party service providers who facilitate payment. Both the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) have issued advisories emphasizing their strict policies against paying prohibited persons or transmitting funds without required procedures. How to steer between the Scylla of legal liability and the Charybdis of a cyberattack? Sometimes ransoms should be paid as the lesser evil. Confronted with the potential damages of a ransomware attack, people may rightly choose to pay. On the other hand, society cannot allow itself to be held hostage. Those who endanger individual lives, enterprises, and core social functions must be resisted. That is, the status quo, in which many enterprises simply pay off cybercriminals, thereby incentivizing more cyberattacks, is unsustainable. This article argues that the threat of legal liability for ransomware payments, with no positive incentive for potential victims, is unlikely to spur adoption of sound security measures or even to stop payments, and may be counterproductive if it leads victims to conceal attacks. Instead, this article suggests the creation of a safe harbor for ransomware payment that (i) enables the victim and those who assist the victim to pay when necessary (protecting stakeholders), but that also (ii) deters attacks (hardening targets) and (iii) facilitates interdiction of attacks that do occur (defending national security).

Are Individuals Willing to Pay for Community-Based Eco-Friendly Malaria Vector Control Strategies? A Case of Mosquito Larviciding Using Plant-Based Biopesticides in Kenya

This study was carried out to assess individuals’ willingness to pay (WTP) for UZIMAX, a novel plant-based biopesticide developed for malaria vector control. The biopesticide is estimated to kill up to 100% of Anopheles larvae within 48 h of application and poses no risks to human health and the environment. However, scaling-up of its adoption requires clear evidence of its acceptance by individuals in malaria-prone areas. We conducted Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) revealed preference auctions with 204 participants to determine their willingness to pay (WTP) for community-based application of the biopesticide to control malaria vectors. Nearly all participants were willing to pay at the lowest bid price of the biopesticide, and the majority of them expressed great interest in pooling resources to facilitate biopesticide application. Household per capita income and building capacity of households through training significantly increased WTP. These findings imply high adoption potential of the technology and the need to devise inclusive policy tools, especially those that enhance collective action, resource mobilization and capacity building to empower both men and women and stimulate investment in eco-friendly technologies for malaria prevention. Financial and labor resource mechanisms managed by the community could potentially spur adoption of the biopesticides, and in turn, generate health, environmental and economic benefits to households in malaria-prone communities.

Social Learning and Solar Photovoltaic Adoption

A growing literature points to the effectiveness of leveraging social interactions and nudges to spur adoption of pro-social behaviors. This study investigates a large-scale behavioral intervention designed to actively leverage social learning and peer interactions to encourage adoption of residential solar photovoltaic systems. Municipalities choose a solar installer offering group pricing, and undertake an informational campaign driven by volunteer ambassadors. We find a causal treatment effect of 37 installations per municipality from the campaigns, and no evidence of harvesting or persistence. The intervention also lowers installation prices. Randomized controlled trials based on the intervention show that selection into the program is important while group pricing is not. Our results suggest that the program provided economies of scale and lowered consumer acquisition costs, leading to low-cost emissions reductions.

Social Learning and Solar Photovoltaic Adoption

A growing literature points to the effectiveness of leveraging social interactions and nudges to spur adoption of pro-social behaviors. This study investigates a large-scale behavioral intervention designed to actively leverage social learning and peer interactions to encourage adoption of residential solar photovoltaic systems. Municipalities choose a solar installer offering group pricing, and undertake an informational campaign driven by volunteer ambassadors. We find a causal treatment effect of 37 installations per municipality from the campaigns, and no evidence of harvesting or persistence. The intervention also lowers installation prices. Randomized controlled trials based on the intervention show that selection into the program is important while group pricing is not. Our results suggest that the program provided economies of scale and lowered consumer acquisition costs, leading to low-cost emissions reductions.

The COPEWELL Rubric: A Self-Assessment Toolkit to Strengthen Community Resilience to Disasters.

Measurement is a community endeavor that can enhance the ability to anticipate, withstand, and recover from a disaster, as well as foster learning and adaptation. This project’s purpose was to develop a self-assessment toolkit—manifesting a bottom-up, participatory approach—that enables people to envision community resilience as a concrete, desirable, and obtainable goal; organize a cross-sector effort to evaluate and enhance factors that influence resilience; and spur adoption of interventions that, in a disaster, would lessen impacts, preserve community functioning, and prompt a more rapid recovery. In 2016–2018, we engaged in a process of literature review, instrument development, stakeholder engagement, and local field-testing, to produce a self-assessment toolkit (or “rubric”) built on the Composite of Post-Event Well-being (COPEWELL) model that predicts post-disaster community functioning and resilience. Co-developing the rubric with community-based users, we generated self-assessment instruments and process guides that localities can more readily absorb and adapt. Applied in three field tests, the Social Capital and Cohesion materials equip users to assess this domain at different geo-scales. Chronicling the rubric’s implementation, this account sheds further light on tensions between community resilience assessment research and practice, and potential reasons why few of the many current measurement systems have been applied.

Natural gas vehicles in heavy-duty transportation-A review

In comparison to legacy engine technology, natural gas vehicles have become cleaner and more efficient. Improved fueling infrastructure has supported the growth of natural gas vehicles in the heavy-duty sector. The heavy-duty transportation industry greatly favors the use of diesel engine technology compared to alternative fuel strategies. Local regulations and economic incentives, however, have helped to spur adoption of natural gas vehicles in certain heavy-duty vocations. Studies have shown lower distance-specific oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emissions from the stoichiometric three-way catalyst (TWC) equipped natural gas engines compared to diesel engines equipped with diesel particulate filters (DPF) and selective catalytic reduction (SCR). This review details the progress in natural gas engine technology, presents changes to emissions rate due to technology advancements, and compares natural gas engine emissions to those of modern diesel engines.

Assessment of the Governance System Regarding Adoption of Energy Efficient Appliances by Households in Nigeria

The adoption of energy efficient electrical appliances by households has a great potential to reduce electricity consumption in Nigeria. A well-formulated and implemented policy (mix) to spur adoption is said to be required to drive this process. This article presents an assessment of policies that aim to spur adoption among households, and the related governance system. The analytical framework used for this analysis is the Governance Assessment Tool (GAT). Data collection involved semi-structured interviews, a review of policy documents, and secondary quantitative data. The results show that policies in Nigeria had little effect in meeting pre-set goals. The governance system was found to be weakly developed due to a lack of policy, the overlapping work of different governmental organizations, a lack of appropriate resources, and a lack of householders’ involvement in agenda-setting and decision-making processes. Current actions mostly depend on local programmes that run via donor aid. They include the free exchange of CFL bulbs and metering studies of end user energy consumption. The results add further insight in the fields of governance and policy on energy efficiency issues in developing countries. This article also provides suggestions for the design of policies that target the adoption of energy efficient electrical appliances among households in Nigeria.

Subchains: A Technique to Scale Bitcoin and Improve the User Experience

Orphan risk for large blocks limits Bitcoin’s transactional capacity while the lack of secure instant transactions restricts its usability. Progress on either front would help spur adoption. This paper considers a technique for using fractional-difficulty blocks (weak blocks) to build subchains bridging adjacent pairs of real blocks. Subchains reduce orphan risk by propagating blocks layer-by-layer over the entire block interval, rather than all at once when the proof-of-work is solved. Each new layer of transactions helps to secure the transactions included in lower layers, even though none of the transactions have been con-firmed in a real block. Miners are incentivized to cooperate building subchains in order to process more transactions per second (thereby claiming more fee revenue) without incur-ring additional orphan risk. The use of subchains also diverts fee revenue towards network hash power rather than dripping it out of the system to pay for orphaned blocks. By nesting subchains, weak block verification times approaching the theoretical limits imposed by speed-of-light constraints would become possible with future technology improvements. As subchains are built on top of the existing Bitcoin protocol, their implementation does not require any changes to Bitcoin’s consensus rules.

Electronic health record system: adoption and influencing factors

The study identified the technological factors, which encourage or limit the adoption of EHR systems in private hospitals in Jordan. The study also, examined the relationship of adoption of EHR to specific hospital characteristics and factors that reported to be barriers to or facilitators of adoption. This study used both descriptive and analytical analysis. Based on responses from 78.9% of hospitals surveyed in Jordan, respondents mentioned that capital requirements, high maintenance costs, and technological factors as the primary barriers of EHR implementation and adoption. The study concluded that the very low levels of adoption of EHRs in private hospitals in Jordan suggest that policymakers face substantial obstacles to the achievement of healthcare performance goals that depend on HIS. A policy strategy focused on financial support, interoperability, and training of technical support staff may be necessary to spur adoption of HIS and EHR in the Jordanian hospitals.