Innovation information seeking and innovation adoption: Facilities and plant managers' energy outlook comparing linear to nonlinear models
Abstract
One focal point of concern, policy and a new research will involve identifying individual and organizational facilitative and obstructive factors within the context of energy innovation diffusion in the U.S. This interdisciplinary intersection of people, technology and change is one of serious consequence and has broad implications that span national security, energy infrastructure, the economy, organizational change, education and the environment. This study investigates facilities and plant managers' energy innovation information seeking and energy adoption evolution. The participants are managers who consume more electrical energy than all other groups in the world and are among the top users of natural gas and oil in the United States. The research calls upon the Theory of Planned Behavior, the Diffusion of Innovations and nonlinear dynamics in a study of adoption patterns for 13 energy-related innovations. Cusp catastrophe models and power laws were compared to linear multiple regression to examine and characterize data. Findings reveal that innovation adoption and information seeking differences are slight between private and public sector facilities and plant managers and that the group as a whole may resist change. Of the 13 innovations, some exhibit very strong cusp catastrophe distributions while support for multiple linear regression and the power law were found.
This paper has been withdrawn.