Simulating resistances in innovation diffusion over multiple generations: an agent-based approach for fuel-cell vehicles

Martin Zsifkovits () and Markus Günther ()

Central European Journal of Operations Research, 2015, vol. 23, issue 2, 522 pages

Abstract: Innovation resistances play a major role in innovation diffusion, as they do not only hinder the adoption, but might also change a decision maker’s evaluation. Although these influences are widely accepted, previous models on the diffusion of new technologies and products have either reduced these multiple dimensions of uncertainties to only one parameter, or have completely neglected them altogether. Both might lead to a pro-innovation bias. Therefore we present an agent-based approach that takes several different innovation resistances in a multi-generation environment into account. Hydrogen vehicles and the necessity of setting up a corresponding infrastructure were chosen for a sample application as they incorporate a band of various dimensions of innovation resistance. Examples are the uncertain infrastructure situation, the uncertainty arising from new and improved features, the uncertainty about the technologies’ real ecological benefit, the unknown maintenance cycles and costs, or the ambiguous technical parameters such as vehicle range. These various uncertainties are even more distinctive if multiple technology generations are considered. Our results indicate that a short-term decrease in the adoption rate can be observed although the technological parameters of a later product generation might be more beneficial for the consumers. As we show, this effect can be eased through timing variation of the communication measures. Therefore we conclude that considering multiple innovation resistance factors in innovation diffusion might reduce the pro-innovation bias. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

Keywords: Adoption; Multi-generation; Technology diffusion; Agent-based simulation; Innovation resistances (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10100-015-0391-x (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:cejnor:v:23:y:2015:i:2:p:501-522

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... search/journal/10100

DOI: 10.1007/s10100-015-0391-x

Access Statistics for this article

Central European Journal of Operations Research is currently edited by Ulrike Leopold-Wildburger

More articles in Central European Journal of Operations Research from Springer, Slovak Society for Operations Research, Hungarian Operational Research Society, Czech Society for Operations Research, Österr. Gesellschaft für Operations Research (ÖGOR), Slovenian Society Informatika - Section for Operational Research, Croatian Operational Research Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().