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The analysis of electric vehicle adoption pathways on a national level is a multi-dimensional problem, making adoption path analysis a complex task. The identification of successful strategies is however crucial for the decarbonization of the transport sector. This work provides an innovative analytical tool integrating a national adoption path identification framework and a macro-environmental STEPE (socio-cultural, technological, economic, political, environmental) approach. The method is tested at three countries: Norway, as the country with highest electric vehicle (EV) share globally, and France and Germany as two important European car-maker industries. When comparing France, Germany and Norway, the proposed framework allows raising the following main conclusions: Technology itself is not a decisive criteria. For the evolvement of a national EV production portfolio, the social value of the technology and the willingness of the incumbent car industry to position itself in this new market appear important. When EV are available in the market, regulatory incentives and policies have to match with consumer preferences. Among direct subsidies, policies affecting the purchase price of EV are identified as most effective instrument. The analysis further prompts a duality between national incentives and local programs supporting EV adoption. The final timeline analysis with Norway as forerunner and France and Germany as early adopters provides a detailed assessment of the temporal evolvement of national EV adoption pathways.

With more and more companies introducing mobile apps and consumers using them during the purchase journey, it is increasingly important to understand the consequences of app adoption on behavioral outcomes. This paper investigates the impact of app adoption on the number of additional products purchased by customers (i.e., cross-buying) and how this effect varies across different product categories and different customers. We focus on two key product category characteristics (utilitarian vs. hedonic nature and perceived risk) and on adopters who vary in their adoption timings (early vs. late adopters). Using data from an online retailer and a combination of propensity score weighting with difference-in-differences and Heckman correction estimation techniques, the results show that app adoption has a positive effect on cross-buying overall, but the effect varies greatly across products and consumers. App adoption promotes additional product purchases for hedonic products but leads to less cross-buying for utilitarian products. In addition, early adopters purchase a higher number of additional product categories than late adopters, with this difference decreasing over time and for new consumers compared to existing customers. These results offer novel insights into the behavioral consequences of app adoption and provide managers with useful recommendations for improving the effectiveness of their mobile app investments.

Recent technological advances have created unprecedented opportunities for consumer technology products to assume a new role, that of representing users’ social status. We study how social-reference-group effects impact firms’ product pricing, design, and targeting strategies. We find that, in a commonly-adopted strategy, Sequential Adoption, where early adopters (leaders) upgrade to a new version when new customers (followers) arrive and adopt the original version, a firm could benefit by leveraging a push effect on leaders who desire to escape from using the same version as followers. However, a strong reference-group effect can also hurt the firm due to a pull effect from the new version on followers who desire to assimilate with leaders. We then study how the firm should differentiate its product versions in two dimensions, functionality and exterior appearance, by leveraging the reference-group effect. We identify three optimal design policies: Functional-Only Differentiation, Joint Differentiation, and Exterior-Focused Differentiation, which differ in the firm’s focus on the two design dimensions. Two factors, the strength of the reference-group effect and the base functional value of the product, jointly determine the conditions under which each design policy dominates the others.

This study addresses two topics relevant to the expanding research on how early adopters of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) evaluate stations. First, we assess FCV adopters' access to available stations near home or on the way when they adopted their FCV. Second, we analyze characteristics of geographically convenient stations that drivers did not intend to use (“unlisted stations”) and compare to those they did (“listed stations”). Responses from a web-based survey distributed to FCV adopters in California indicate that nearly half lacked a station within 10 min’ drive of home, while nearly all had one on the way. Drivers did not intend to use nearly half of their geographically convenient stations. Compared to listed stations, unlisted stations are closer to other available ones and commonly only on the way, and several neighborhood-level differences are observed. These findings are important in the context of efforts to expand FCV uptake.

Customers are important intangible assets of firms. Customer equity (CE) and customer equity sustainability ratio (CESR) cannot only provide a crucial basis for measuring the growth potential of firms but also provide managers a reference standard to allocate the marketing resource. This empirical study discussed the CE measurement of a mobile payments aggregator. With the rapid development of mobile payment in China, it is very meaningful to calculate the CE of these aggregators as an emerging business pattern because calculating CE cannot only help the mobile payments aggregator evaluate its future business development but also help it to provide value-added services and generate service fee from its clients, i.e., the retailers. The main purpose of this paper is to calculate CE of a mobile payments aggregator generated from a specific retailer from the perspective of technology diffusion. Based on the Bass model and Rogers’ theory of innovation diffusion, we calculated CE and CESR for five segments, namely innovators, early adopters, early majorities, late majorities, and laggards. The results show that it is the early adopters and the early majorities who generate most of the profit and it is also these two segments that have the greatest growth potential in the future.

Purpose The Fail-Safe Startup: Your Roadmap for Entrepreneurial Success, the new book by entrepreneurship researcher Tom Eisenmann, sets out to help improve the odds by looking more closely at the most prevalent causes of startup failure and how to avoid them. Design/methodology/approach Eisenmann research led him to identify six distinct patterns that explain a large proportion of startup failures, three relating to early stage failures and three to late stage. Findings Strong demand from early adopters may lead a founder to scale up prematurely. Practical/implications Entrepreneurs must research differences in the needs of likely early adopters and mainstream customers during the upfront customer discovery phase. Originality/value Entrepreneurs must research differences in the needs of likely early adopters and mainstream customers during the upfront customer discovery phase. 10; 10;The line between visionary entrepreneur and cult leader can become blurry, and a founder?s ?reality distortion field--useful for motivating others to help pursue the founder?s dream?can become a liability.

Based on new data, we replicate Mahajan et al.’s (1990) paper on adopter categories and Goldenberg et al.’s (2002) paper on saddles and offer explanations and extensions. We use a new dataset to replicate the results, namely, the U.S. Consumer Technology Association’s Sales & Forecasts, which provides longitudinal data on numerous consumer electronic products. Goldenberg, Libai, and Muller utilized the same source for 1999, while we use the updated 2021 report for the adopter category as well as the saddle replication, thus employing the same data source for both studies. We find that in the adoption of consumer electronics, there are fewer saddles, and these saddles are shorter and shallower in 2021 than they were in 1999. Regarding adopter categories, we break the data down by decades and show that, while the early adopter categories just barely decelerated over the six decades of our analysis, the average growth of the new dataset is much faster, with the peak occurring considerably sooner than that of the earlier data.

An increase in descriptive evidence regarding person‐centered approaches for older people with intellectual disability (ID) is important, due to increased life expectancy and the present lack of sufficiently underpinned interventions. This is especially true of interventions designed to increase well‐being and quality of life. A specific Dutch example is the Integrated Emotion‐Oriented Care approach. Despite its status as a good practice, its effectiveness has not yet been proved, nor has descriptive evidence been made available. The primary aims of this qualitative study are to identify the intervention components, to provide demonstrative illustrations and to gain an in‐depth understanding of the use of these components in the day‐to‐day support of older people with ID. A content analysis of five key documents was carried out. Five semi‐structured interviews were then conducted with early adopters, followed by a concept mapping study with daily users. The final stage in the data collection process was a series of five focus‐group interviews with experts and experienced support staff. The five intervention components of Integrated Emotion‐Oriented Care for older people with ID have been systematically identified and described in detail in five narrative summaries drawn up in collaboration with early adopters, experts and experienced support staff. This study provides valuable insights that offer descriptive evidence for Integrated Emotion‐Oriented Care in the care for older people with ID. Both implications and possible opportunities for future research are discussed.

This study quantifies the effect of the 2020 state COVID economic activity reopening policies on daily mobility and mixing behavior, adding to the economic literature on individual responses to public health policy that addresses public contagion risks. We harness cellular device signal data and the timing of reopening plans to provide an assessment of the extent to which human mobility and physical proximity in the United States respond to the reversal of state closure policies. We observe substantial increases in mixing activities, 13.56% at 4?days and 48.65% at 4?weeks, following reopening events. Echoing a theme from the literature on the 2020 closures, mobility outside the home increased on average prior to these state actions. Furthermore, the largest increases in mobility occurred in states that were early adopters of closure measures and hard-hit by the pandemic, suggesting that psychological fatigue is an important barrier to implementation of closure policies extending for prolonged periods of time.

This paper explores underlying power structures in an online learning environment through the lens of the community inquiry framework. By drawing on interview data from 22 students and 12 module leaders across three programmes at one higher education institution (HEI) in the UK, the study explores how technology enhances or inhibits cognitive presence, teaching presence, and social presence in an online learning environment. The results show that the pedagogical or psychological characteristics and approaches to online learning can enhance learners' experience or silence them, diminishing their experience in an online learning environment. This paper's core argument is that online learning occurs in a virtual space aided by 'technology' in which learners can access, engage, and interact within a community for a meaningful learning experience. However, a degree of bias can arise from the asymmetries of power underlying a technology-aided environment. This bias is shaped by 'access' to the online environment, 'skills, and expertise needed to take advantage of opportunities in the virtual environment, the nature of 'curriculum design' and module 'delivery plan' that determine learners' ability to become reflective autonomous learners. These biases have the potential to enhance or inhibit the student learning experience. The paper sets out what this means within the broader context of higher education policy and practice.

Digital pedagogies, blended, hybrid, and online learning are not new, indeed discussions about their role in higher education are well documented. With some notable exceptions however, many of these discussions, and many more attempts at implementation, have been small in scale, operating at the level of a single course, or even single members of staff. Barriers at national, institutional and personal levels all contributed to slow uptake of digital learning. The summer of 2020 though saw institutions across the UK, and indeed the world, forced into rapid transition to online learning in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper examines our work supporting a school - which achieved high student satisfaction rates - within a large post-92 university in this transition. With specific attention to academic identity and efficacy, we examine the approaches that were taken in helping academics to climb over the digital hurdle towards good online teaching. We suggest that a three-pronged approach is needed to overcome these barriers and create the belief in digital that is needed for a successful online transition, and for continued growth. These are a collective ‘all in it together’ approach, placing curriculum, rather than technology at the heart of the work, and also ensuring solid institutional support that does not rely on early adopters.

Background The rapid acceleration of virtual health care delivery, telehealth, has underlined the pressing need for graduate nursing students to gain skills and competencies that will ensure effective and efficient delivery of telehealth care in future generations. Problem There is a need for graduate nursing students to be prepared to use telehealth, but few nursing programs offer this training. Barriers to this implementation may be due to lack of faculty knowledge, telehealth resources, or telehealth opportunities. Solution Graduate nursing faculty should use resources and the wisdom of early adopters of telehealth to ensure adequate telehealth preparation is integrated into all graduate nursing programs. Conclusion This article describes emerging core competencies for telehealth education and offers guidance, resources, and activities for nurse educators who seek to prepare emerging advanced practice RNs to plan, deliver, and implement effective telehealth practices.

Problems of poor network interoperability in electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure, where data about real-time usage or consumption is not easily shared across service providers, has plagued the widespread analysis of energy used for transportation. In this article, we present a high-resolution dataset of real-time EV charging transactions resolved to the nearest second over a one-year period at a multi-site corporate campus. This includes 105 charging stations across 25 different facilities operated by a single firm in the U.S. Department of Energy Workplace Charging Challenge. The high-resolution data has 3,395 real-time transactions and 85 users with both paid and free sessions. The data has been expanded for re-use such as identifying charging behaviour and segmenting user groups by frequency of usage, stage of adoption, and employee type. Potential applications include but are not limited to simulating and parameterizing energy demand models; investigating flexible charge scheduling and optimal power flow problems; characterizing transportation emissions and electric mobility patterns at high temporal resolution; and evaluating characteristics of early adopters and lead user innovation., Measurement(s) Unit of Electric Charge Technology Type(s) Internet Mobile Technology Factor Type(s) charging station location Sample Characteristic - Environment office Sample Characteristic - Location contiguous United States of America Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data: 10.6084/m9.figshare.14357123

Purpose Despite a lot of agricultural initiatives by the government in a regionally diversified country like India, agriculture is poor, and farmer suicide cases are rampant. This study aims to socially transform and bring behavioural change among the farmers of southern India through the usage of new media. The research has gauged the factors that affect new media accessibility and usability, hindrances in the process and change of farmer’s behaviour through online social marketing bringing social transformation. Design/methodology/approach The study is action participatory in nature, and the data is triangulated by conducting a survey at the first level using the Delphi technique among 184 rural south Indian farmers who are smartphone users use new media, and at the next level, the farmers were requested to use WhatsApp for agricultural new sharing, and in the last stage, personal interview with entrepreneurs and farmers has been conducted to understand their new media adoption, e-learning and online social marketing. Findings New media is the best way to transform agricultural practices socially. It is a forum where all the farmers of the country can get together and address the issue of the agrarian crisis. Online social marketing (OSM) through WhatsApp is one of the best methods of behavioural change because different farmers can share their experiences and emotion for the crisis and give an appropriate solution to a problem. And, one of the most important features of OSM is it removes third parties from miscellaneous issues be it selling, buying or seeking and sharing information. Research limitations/implications Despite trying to cover different hindrances in the way of social marketing of agriculture, the study is not free without its limitations. Language was a barrier, and this study require a lot of time to perceive the changes and adoption. Also, due to time constraint, the authors have categorically clubbed innovators, early adopters and early majority in the same layer opinion leaders and adopters of innovation. These could be analyzed separately in five layers, as suggested by Rogers (1995). Practical implications From the managerial perspective, the government should extend services that teach the agriculturists, farmers the use of new media. The marketers and makers of apps and software can tap into this business for launching products for farmers. We need apps designed only for farmers, where agricultural and farming practitioners all over the country and globe can interact about their products, conditions of agriculture and give solution to issues arising in agriculture and farming. Originality/value The researchers posit that there are hardly any studies that provide strategies to the agricultural and farming sectors in a regionally diversified country like India. The study is one of its first kind to propose new media strategies to reach out to the farmers of different regions and segmentation for a behavioural change and adoption of new media for better and sustainable agriculture. It has gauged into the factors that affect new media accessibility and usability among farmers and simultaneously gave strategy for behavioural change.

Space is a resource that is constantly being depleted, especially in mega-cities. Underground workspaces (UGS) are increasingly being included in urban plans and have emerged as a realistic and essential component of vertical cities. While progress had been made on the engineering aspects associated with the development of high-quality UGS, public attitudes towards UGS as work environment (i.e. concerns public has on the design of UGS) are relatively unknown. Here, we present the first large-scale study examining preferences and attitudes towards UGS, surveying close to 2,000 participants from four cities in three continents (Singapore, Shanghai, London and Montreal). Contrary to some anecdotal or qualitative beliefs, air quality (and not lack of windows) is the major concern of prospective occupants. Windows, temperature and lighting emerged as additional key architectural features for UGS. Importantly, early adopters (i.e. individuals more willing to accept UGS and thus more likely to be the first occupants) across all cities prioritised air quality. Present results suggest that (perceived) air quality is a key architectural feature for UGS that needs to be communicated to prospective occupants as this will improve their attitudes and views towards UGS. This study highlights the importance of indoor air quality for the public. Ministry of National Development (MND) National Research Foundation (NRF) Accepted version This research is supported in part by the Singapore Ministry of National Development and the National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Office under the Land and Liveability National Innovation Challenge (L2 NIC) Research Programme (L2 NIC Award No L2 NIC FP1-2013-2).

Aims To identify implementation barriers and facilitators to the adoption and implementation of programs that provide opioid agonist treatments (OAT) with methadone and buprenorphine to treat opioid use disorder in jails and prisons in the United States DESIGN: Qualitative analysis: semi-structured interviews were conducted, and thematic analyses of transcripts and notes were done using a hybrid inductive/deductive coding approach SETTING: Jails and prisons in the United States PARTICIPANTS: From August 2019 to January 2020, we conducted 20 key informant interviews with 35 individuals representing 19 carceral systems that both initiate and maintain OAT. Measurements Interviews covered four domains: (1) program adoption; (2) policy influence on implementation; (3) program structure; and (4) program outcomes. Findings Stigma among staff, particularly medical staff, challenged program adoption, but reduced over time as staff were exposed to the program. Regulations on OAT dispensation, such as licensing requirements and prescribing limits, were key challenges to program implementation and shaped program structure. Dispensing medication required significant staff, time and space. Facilities were further challenged to overcome stigma and concerns about diversion, as OAT medication is often treated as contraband in carceral settings. Some systems deviated from evidence-based treatment by limiting OAT dosage to low levels, requiring counseling for participation and requiring detoxification before medication initiation. Despite these challenges, early adopters felt strongly that other jails and prisons in the United States should provide OAT and that legislation and litigation may soon force OAT expansion in these carceral settings. Conclusions Despite identifying regulatory and logistical challenges, early adopters of opioid agonist treatment (OAT) programs in US jails and prisons provide examples that demonstrate that OAT programs can successfully be implemented in carceral settings with tailoring to the specific context.

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate social influences on the UK integrated reporting () adoption and implementation.Design/methodology/approachThe study was based on in-depth semi-structured interviews with 36 senior executives actively involved in within 17 organisations.FindingsMain social influences on adoption externally were reported design consultants and to a lesser extent, external auditors, primarily to legitimise . Internal influences were board support for , with the main driver being the mind-set of the CFO/Chairman to drive sustainability throughout the organisation or to regain trust in society. Social influences aiding further diffusion at the implementation stage came from three external sources: business networks; report design consultants; and external auditors. Internal influences in driving diffusion within organisations were identified in five functional areas, with finance, sustainability and communications functions exerting the greatest external influence on the diffusion of .Research limitations/implicationsThis research study was limited by the small sample of organisations that participated, although significant efforts were made to ensure that the sample incorporated the majority of early adopter UK organisations who demonstrated best practice in . Therefore, the findings are specific to the research context and do not represent statistical generalisations.Practical implicationsEmpirical evidence identifying social influences from a practitioner perspective provides recommendations as to how may be further diffused in the future.Social implications creates the potential to significantly improve the long-term health of corporations and the external environment they impact through consideration of the three indivisible and integrated dimensions of sustainable development, the economy, society and the environment and can contribute to a sustainable society by providing the opportunity for organisations to respond to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This highlights the significance of the research, which aims to gain insights into social influences which can assist in the adoption and implementation of .Originality/valueThis is the first comprehensive study of social influences on the adoption and implementation practices in the UK. It incorporates recommendations to improve the likelihood of subsequent adoption and diffusion of based on the findings.

The path towards a transport system with fully automated vehicles entails a transitioning period where manual and automated vehicles will coexist in traffic for many years. To realize the many suggested benefits of automated transport, such as lower emissions and improved safety, there is a need for more knowledge concerning the user experience of both manual and automated systems. This study measures and compares driver acceptance of an integrated driver assistance system and a retrofit system based on geofence technology. We focus on two use cases: low-emission zones and school zones. The integrated system was tested by 43 participants driving on a pre-defined test route, using an assisting and visual system with HMI integrated in the dashboard. The retrofit system involved 42 participants and was implemented with an on-board unit with a visual system, using an external screen as HMI. Participants tested the system for eight weeks, including two weeks in black mode. Participants in both trials were experienced drivers and likely to be ‘‘early adopters”, and the acceptance of the systems was evaluated through a survey. Although the research design for the two driver assistance systems was not identical, similar questions were given, making it possible to compare driver acceptance and workload. The analysis shows overall high acceptance among the users for both trials. However, the results show that the integrated system had greater levels of satisfaction, usefulness and usability for low emission zones, as well as greater levels of satisfaction and usefulness for school zones. We also conclude that retrofit systems must improve HMI satisfaction to constitute a viable option for transport authorities when integrating novel ITS technologies.

U.S. professional sports teams are increasingly relying on sophisticated forms of data analysis to identify potential areas of competitive advantage over their league rivals. Indeed, emerging evidence suggests that the most sophisticated teams in this area are using the insights that they derive from data analytics to establish durable and significant gains over their competition on the playing field. At the same time, sports franchises frequently utilize non-compete agreements to protect the resulting, proprietary information that their data analysis yields. Unfortunately, recent academic research suggests that this reliance on covenants not to compete can decrease the rate of knowledge diffusion within an industry, making it more difficult for teams to catch up to early adopters of data analytics. Thus, teams’ growing reliance on data analytics — and their use of non-compete agreements to protect it — could have significant, but heretofore unrecognized, ramifications for league efforts to maintain an adequate level of competitive balance amongst their franchises. This article explores this state of affairs, as well as the implications it presents for the governance of U.S. professional sports leagues.

With the inauguration of the world's largest green hydrogen facility, the Government of Japan is steadily advancing towards its goal of transforming into a hydrogen-based society, but the lack of interest in adopting hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs) among consumers is noticeable. This study examines the socioeconomic profiles of 500 potential car buyers with and without interest in HFCVs. The results show that the potential early adopters of HFCVs exhibit similar trends of sex, employment status, number of people in the households, weekly distance traveled, and frequency of using expressways that influence their decision. They have a significant variance in income, previous battery electric vehicle (BEV) experiences, and knowledge of HFCVs. The results suggest that knowledge of HFCVs and related technologies, and previous experience in driving BEVs encourage respondents to purchase HFCVs. The study suggests that the greater awareness of HFCV can assist policymakers in the successful market adoption.

Transport planning and policy is increasingly being called to action in ways that differ from practices of yesteryear. Varied segments of society are increasingly looking to city streets—the workhorse of a city's transport system—as places to enact change. Namely, to change their character away from the type of streets pervasive in auto-oriented urban environments. Acutely experienced during the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency response measures from many cities across the world abruptly altered the nature and purpose of street space. These “street experiments” fueled an opportunity, in part, to explore a transition to practices prioritizing forms of sustainable mobility such as walking and bicycling. This research inventories street-focused emergency response measures from the 55 largest cities in the US. We devise a rubric to systematically assess and locate characteristics of these measures that enable a transition. Results show that five “innovator” and several “early adopter” cities are using COVID conditions to test new forms of streets and in some cases, street networks. These cities excelled in conveying a vision for alternative future, articulating implementation pathways, leveraging political capacity, and circulating information. After six months, half of the cities continue their efforts, including only six which have expanded. The few showing continued strength demonstrate endeavors to evaluate the experiments, validate their feasibility, and embed the experiments into existing sustainability policy. These components, when leveraged together, could seed innovative break-throughs in how city streets are used, designed, and standardized. The paper establishes baseline evidence on which future research efforts can build and provides empirical evidence on early stages of the experimentation and transition processes of urban mobility systems.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the impact of fintech, mobile money and digital financial services in Uganda and factors impacting adoption of the services. The study will also determine their social impact through financial inclusion in the Ugandan market. Design/methodology/approach This study covers the adoption and use of fintech, mobile money and digital financial services in Uganda. A case study approach was used through a survey questionnaire for 400 randomly selected participants within the Kampala region. Questionnaire was designed to measure customer perception of digital financial services and adoption including mobile money and agency banking. Findings The adoption of mobile money services is driven by mobile devices penetration and the need for access to financial products and services for the unbanked. Results support CGAP (2013) that observed that mobile money adoption was based on two key variables: social network and social interactions of the customer and a segment of customers who can be described as mobile technology leaders (early adopters). There has been positive impact on person to person transfers, grocery payments and mobile money providers have to continue to simplify the access to financial services and bring convenience to the bottom of the pyramid. And mobile money positively impacts sustainable developmental goals covering Gender Equality (SDG5), SDG 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth; expanding financial inclusion through mobile money and SDG 10 – Reduce Inequalities. Research limitations/implications This study has limitations commonly prevalent with qualitative research, including the small size limited to Kampala and challenges of making generalisations beyond this context. Practical implications The paper might serve as a valuable source of information for government and fintech companies in developing the digital financial services ecosystem as well as for students and academics for further case studies in this area. Originality/value This paper serves as one of the first qualitative research papers concerning mobile money and digital financial services adoption, solely focused on Uganda. Its value is in its showcasing of the importance of mobile money among customers in emerging markets.

This study investigates associations between mathematics pedagogy and teachers’ integration of Information Communication Technologies (ICT). As an early adopter of presentation-oriented hardware an...

This article develops and tests an ethnographic decision model (EDM) of hydrogen fuel cell vehicle (FCV) adoption using interviews with California residents that either actually adopted an FCV or “seriously considered” doing so before deciding against it. We developed an initial model from 25 semi-structured interviews in which respondents self-described their decision-making processes. We iteratively tested and refined the model in a second round of 53 structured interviews. The final model consists of a first stage that assesses FCV adoption feasibility and a second stage that compares FCVs to other vehicle types. The model ultimately correctly predicts 86.8% of cases in the sample. In the first stage, respondents preferred to satisfy their need for a primary refueling station near home but a substantial number were willing to rely on a station near or on the way to work or other destination. Most drivers required a convenient backup station and a means of managing long-distance trips. Vehicle size options eliminated a few respondents. None rejected FCV adoption due to insufficient driving range. In the second stage, nearly all drivers engaged in some kind of cost comparison, though the factors considered varied greatly. Most opted for what they viewed as the less costly option, although a few FCV adopters and non-adopters were willing to pay more for their more preferred option. EDM is a promising qualitative research method for generating insights into how people navigate the decision whether or not to get an alternative-fuel vehicle.

New technologies have been driving the global financial market, including fintech companies, which provide disruptive financial services in which information technology is the key factor. The objective of this study is to identify which factors most influence intentions to continue using these companies’ products. To achieve this, research by Ryu (2018) was replicated. Our adopted model evaluates the weight of seven factors composing two latent variables - perceived risk and perceived benefit - in the continuity of use of these services. The data collection was performed through an electronic survey, distributed through social networks during May and June of 2019. The main results confirmed seven of the eleven initial hypotheses, highlighting that the perceived benefits, especially the economic ones, were relevant to early adopters and seamless transactions were relevant for late adopters. Surprisingly, perceived risk was not a determinant of continuance intention. One of the contributions of this study is that it indicates some possible demographic and behavioral characteristics of Brazilian fintech consumers, opening up space for a better understanding of the market and service improvements. RESUMO Novas tecnologias têm impulsionado o mercado financeiro mundial, como empresas chamadas de fintech, que oferecem serviços financeiros disruptivos em que a tecnologia da informação é fator chave. O objetivo deste trabalho é identificar quais fatores mais influenciam a intenção de continuidade de uso dos produtos oferecidos por essas empresas. Para isso, foi replicada a pesquisa de Ryu (2018). O modelo adotado avalia o peso de sete fatores que compõem duas variáveis latentes - risco e benefício percebidos - na continuidade de uso desses serviços. A coleta de dados foi realizada por meio de questionário eletrônico distribuído por redes sociais entre maio e junho de 2019. Os resultados principais ratificaram sete das onze hipóteses iniciais, enfatizando que a percepção dos benefícios, especialmente os econômicos, foram relevantes para adotantes iniciais e a fluidez na transação, para adotantes tardios. Surpreendentemente, a percepção de risco não foi determinante para intenção de continuidade de uso. Uma das contribuições deste estudo é apontar possíveis características demográficas e comportamentais do cliente brasileiro de fintechs, abrindo espaço para compreensão do mercado e melhoria nos serviços.

PurposeThis paper aims to investigate the dynamics of the organizational buying process of radical software innovations. Acquisition of technology innovations by early adopting organizations has been studied previously with scant attention being given to the actual buying process and the risk mitigation mechanism. This paper addresses these gaps in the literature and this paper finds evidence to support that the organizational buying process of radical software innovations is different from the general models of organizational buying.Design/methodology/approachMethods from the grounded theory approach were used to conduct 20 in-depth interviews with senior industry practitioners. Purposive sampling was used to identify the participants.FindingsA theoretical model of the organizational buying process of radical software innovations emerged with themes and concepts that explain the dynamics of the buying and adoption processes. The paper challenges the fundamental tenet of organizational buying that needs recognition triggers the buying process. An interesting nuance was found that risk is mitigated within the buying action itself.Practical implicationsAn understanding of the buyer behaviour process will help marketers of radical software innovations to formulate the appropriate marketing response. Sales personnel can attune their customer interactions when helping customers to acquire a radical software innovation. Firms that want to be early adopters and innovate can tune their buying process in line with the findings.Originality/valueThis paper develops a typological buying model. It unravels the dynamics of the adoption process by discussing how early adopting organizations buy radical software innovations. New concepts with rich explanatory powers are discussed.

Purpose This study aims to examine the integration of integrated reporting (IR) into the formal control systems (FCSs) early adopters use to implement IR, and investigate whether it drives informal control systems (ICSs) change at this early stage. Design/methodology/approach A case study was conducted in seven large Japanese companies. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews and e-mail exchanges with the managers responsible for developing integrated reports in Japanese companies that excel in IR practices. Content analysis was adopted to analyze the data. Findings The results showed incremental changes to the integration of IR into FCSs. However, the integration may not cause radical changes to ICSs because all sample companies recognized the importance and necessity of embedding integrated thinking in all levels of companies to put it into practice for value creation over time. Originality/value This study contributes to IR research from an internal corporate perspective. Specifically, this study provides new knowledge on the relationships between IR and MCSs. This research also gives new insight into operationalization and internalization of sustainability in terms of IR and MCSs in companies, not only in Japan, but also worldwide.

This study analyzes the marriage patterns of five hundred highly successful women in modern German-speaking Central Europe. Among the women at the very top of their professions, women of Jewish descent were more likely than non-Jewish women to marry while they pursued their careers. The results of our quantitative study—67.6 percent of women of Jewish descent married versus 51.6 percent of non-Jewish women—provide a unique body of data that complements and contributes to other research that identifies distinctive aspects of Central European Jewish life patterns: the high number of Jewish women university students, the importance of women of Jewish descent in a number of fields, and Jewish families as early adopters of a modern family form with a small number of children and intensive investment in each child.

The customary doctor and patient interactions are currently undergoing significant changes through technological advances in imaging and data processing and the need for reducing person-to person contacts during the COVID-19 crisis. There is a trend away from face-to-face examinations to virtual assessments and decision making. Ophthalmology is particularly amenable to such changes, as a high proportion of clinical decisions are based on routine tests and imaging results, which can be assessed remotely. The uptake of digital ophthalmology varies significantly between countries. Due to financial constraints within the National Health Service, specialized ophthalmology units in the UK have been early adopters of digital technology. For more than a decade, patients have been managed remotely in the diabetic retinopathy screening service and virtual glaucoma clinics. We describe the day-to-day running of such services and the doctor and patient experiences with digital ophthalmology in daily practice.Die gewohnten Prozesse in der Patientenbetreuung in der Augenheilkunde unterliegen derzeit signifikanten Veränderungen durch Fortschritte bei Bildgebungsverfahren und Datenverarbeitung. Dieser Prozess wird durch die aktuelle Notwendigkeit zur Reduzierung von Personenkontakten im Rahmen der COVID-19-Pandemie erheblich beschleunigt. Die Augenheilkunde eignet sich besonders für derartige Veränderungen, da ein großer Anteil der Diagnose und Behandlung auf Routinemessungen und bildgebenden Verfahren beruht, deren Beurteilung keinen direkten Arzt-Patienten-Kontakt erfordert. Die Einbindung der digitalen Ophthalmologie in die tägliche Praxis variiert stark zwischen einzelnen Ländern. Durch die finanziellen Einschränkungen im National Health Service (NHS) in Großbritannien sahen sich die britischen Augenkliniken schon relativ früh dazu genötigt, digitale Technologien in den Alltag einzubinden. Seit mehr als 10 Jahren sind das Diabetische-Retinopathie-Screening und virtuelle Glaukomsprechstunden fester Bestandteil der täglichen Praxis. In dieser Arbeit beschreiben wir die Organisation und die Erfahrungen mit diesen neuen Formen der Patientenbehandlung aus Sicht der behandelnden Ärzte und Patienten.

Due to the environmental and nutritional benefits of insects, their consumption would be one of the solutions to feed the growing human population. Despite the increasing interest in the use of insects as food and feed, consumer acceptance is the major obstacle to successful implementation in Western countries and we studied the factors that influence consumer acceptance in a group of university students from Germany and the Netherlands. In this exploratory research, a survey was conducted (n = 222). Socio‐demographic and psychological factors were established from a theoretical review. In addition, we elaborated on questions regarding information on the health and environmental benefits of consuming insects. Initially, the data obtained are presented through descriptive statistics. The influence of the socio‐demographic and psychological factors, and the information on the willingness to accept insects as animal feed and human food was analyzed using correlations and multiple linear regressions. Results showed more willingness to accept insects as animal feed than in human food. The acceptance among German and Dutch students seems to be driven by issues similar to those in other European countries, such as visual aspects and knowledge about the benefits. The effect of the information on willingness constitutes an important finding of this study, especially for the use of insects in animal feed, since most of the previous studies have focused on the use of insects as human food. Our data support the need to inform and educate consumers about the environmental and health benefits of entomophagy. We conclude that effective efforts to implement entomophagy could increase the level of familiarity with the insect food and inform (or educate) consumers about its benefits. Insights from this study are useful to address studies focusing on specific segments of possible early adopters and consequently addressing communication strategies in this market segmentation., Data about insights into the consumer's acceptance towards insects in feed and food is presented. Rather than invest efforts in reducing neophobia and disgust, it could be more effectively to increase the level of familiarity with the dishes and interest about entomophagy.

Increasing ridership in the urban rail systems in major cities is outpacing their designed capacity. Promotion based demand management can facilitate better utilization of the available capacity of the existing system when the investment and opportunity to expand the system are limited. While several studies address short-term behavioral responses to such promotions using before and after analysis, how behavioral changes are sustained in the long run is also very important as well as differences in response among different user groups. Using an extensive smart card dataset over two years from Hong Kong’s urban heavy railway system, this paper explores the longitudinal behavior of passengers in response to a promotion aiming at changing passengers’ travel period from peak to the pre-peak. The approach uses customer segmentation to understand the heterogeneous response of different groups. Users who have high flexibility in schedule and familiarity with the system and travel long distances tend to be more likely to change their travel periods to take advantage of the discount. The longitudinal promotion analysis reveals that 35–40% of passengers who initially adopted the promotion will eventually revert to their previous travel time periods. The results suggest that the promotion designs should be adjusted/renewed over time to sustain the initial response given the attrition of early adopters. Based on the behavioral analysis, an ‘optimal’ promotion design approach is applied to examine the effectiveness of promotion strategies given different behavioral responses over time, heterogeneous group behavior, and constraints on the investment budgets and performance requirements. The promotion design using group-specific response can better target price-sensitive users, hence improves its effectiveness over time, while the design based on the average response shows a significant performance decrease. However, the optimal design schemes using different behavioral responses are relatively consistent in terms of the selected stations for promotion, though some differences exist in the discount levels and time periods for the areas where there can be more early morning travelers. From a design perspective, there is not much difference in the promotion effectiveness regardless of the behavioral response assumed for the design.

The concept of Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) is rapidly gaining momentum. Parties involved are eager to learn more about its potential uptake, effects on travel behaviour, and users. We focus on the latter, as we attempt to reveal the profile of groups within the Dutch population that have a relatively high likelihood of adopting MaaS in the near future, apart from the actual supply side. MaaS is a transport concept integrating existing and new mobility services on a digital platform, providing customised door-to-door transportation options. Based on common denominators of MaaS as found in the literature, we have established five indicators to identify early adopters: innovativeness, being tech-savvy, needing travel information, having a multimodal mindset, and wanting freedom of choice. These five indicators are the building blocks of our Latent Demand for MaaS Index (LDMI), and were constructed using 26 statements and questions from a special survey conducted in 2018 among participants of the Netherlands Mobility Panel (MPN). The features derived from the MPN serve as independent variables in a regression analysis of the indicators used to ascertain the profile of early adopters. The results of our model indicate that early adopters are likely to be highly mobile, have a high socio-economic status, high levels of education and high personal incomes. Young people are more eager to adopt MaaS than older adults. Early adopters are healthy, active and frequent users of trains and planes. The characteristics of MaaS's early adopters overlap in numerous ways with those of innovative mobility services users and with the general characteristics of early adopters as found in innovation studies.

Bike sharing systems are increasingly promoted as a quick, accessible, affordable, and healthy transport alternative in a less car-dependent urban mobility system. The objective of this article is to elucidate the social and spatial inclusiveness of bike sharing, by exploring its intersectionality with user backgrounds and residential contexts, and its mechanisms of mediation by attitudes, mobility resources and daily mobility patterns. Hereto, the paper examines and cross-compares the discrepancies between stated bike sharing interest and reported bike sharing membership, amongst a sample of 3672 residents of urban regions in Norway in structural equation models (SEM). Our results indicate that interest is positively influenced by early adopter characteristics, such as young age, full-time work, environmental consciousness, urban outlook, urban residential locations, and the current adoption of combined bicycle and public transport use. In contrast, reported bike sharing membership is explained more typically as a travel behaviour: with reduced effects of attitudes; enhanced effects of residential urban form and bicycle-public transport use; and additional negative effects of car and bike ownership. The paper concludes by discussing these and other interest-adoption discrepancies across social and spatial categories, to derive policy and research directions for inclusive bike sharing.

The early history of ultrasound in emergency medicine has remained for the most part undocumented up to this time. This piece represents personal recollections of the evolution of point‐of‐care ultrasound from its origins in the late 1980s in the United States. A description of ultrasound equipment, resistance to widespread implementation, the evolution of training, and fellowship programs with subsequent publications and committee developments are examined in detail. Special attention to the advancement of trauma ultrasound is also examined from the viewpoint of an early adopter. The purpose of this manuscript is to recognize the persistence and dedication of some of the early founders of emergency ultrasound, thus gaining a deeper appreciation for the scope of practice and meaningful use that emergency physicians are now using on a daily basis.

This paper examines the relationship between the early adoption of new technologies, the probability of firm survival, and environmental regulations through a case study of dry cleaners in the Sout...

As technologies continue to evolve at exponential rates, online platforms are becoming an increasingly salient social context for adolescents. Adolescents are often early adopters, savvy users, and innovators of technology use. This not only creates new vulnerabilities, but also presents new opportunities for positive impact—particularly the use of technology to promote healthy learning and adaptation during developmental windows of opportunity. For example, early adolescence appears to represent a developmental inflection point in health trajectories and in technology use in ways that may be strategically targeted for prevention and intervention. The field of adolescent health can capitalize on this strategic use of technology use during developmental windows of opportunity to promote well-being and behavior change in the following ways: 1) Through a deeper understanding of the specific ways that developmental changes create new opportunities for motivation and engagement with technologies; 2) By leveraging these insights for more effective use of technology in intervention and prevention efforts; and 3) By combining developmental science informed targeting with broader-reach technologic approaches to health behavior change at the population level (e.g., leveraging and changing social norms). Transdisciplinary collaboration across disciplines—including developmental science, medicine, psychology, public health, and computer science—can create compelling innovations to use digital technology to promote health in adolescents.