BIS Seminar: Professor Daniel Veit

Adoption of Sustainable Technologies: A Mixed-Methods Study of German Households

Although technologies spurred by the “internet of things” are increasingly being introduced in homes, only few studies have examined the adoption or diffusion of such household technologies. One particular area of interest in this context is electricity consumption, especially the introduction of smart metering technology (SMT) in households. Despite its growing prominence, SMT implementation has met with various challenges across the world, including limited adoption by consumers. Thus, this study empirically examines the antecedents of SMT adoption by potential consumers. Using a mixed-methods design, the study first unearths the SMT-specific antecedents, then develops a contextualized model by drawing on theories from motivational psychology and the antecedents identified earlier, and then tests this model using a large-scale survey (N=930) of German consumers. Results provide support for many of the hypotheses and highlight the importance of motivational factors and some household demographic, privacy, and innovation-related factors to consumers’ intention to adopt SMT.

Professor Daniel Veit

Dr. Daniel Veit is a professor and chair of Information Systems and Management at the Department of Business Administration of the Faculty of Business and Economics of the University of Augsburg, Germany. Furthermore, he is appointed as a visiting professor at the Department of Digitalization of the Copenhagen Business School, Denmark.

In his research, Dr. Veit is interested in questions regarding the adoption and diffusion of digital infrastructures and new phenomena in enterprises and society. His main focus rests on theory building research. From a methodological point of view he employs qualitative and quantitative empirical methods to gain insights into the effects of digitization in business and society. Based on these he also derives implications for practice as well as recommendations for companies, governments, societal groups and individuals. In the year 2014 he founded the Institute for Digitzation Research e.V. in Munich as a platform for these activities.