| Nonlinear Dynamics, Psychology, and Life Sciences, Vol. 11, Iss. 4, Oct, 2007, pp. 499-520 @2007 Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology & Life Sciences Nonlinear Models for the Adoption and Diffusion of Innovations for Industrial Energy Conservation Abstract: Four different theoretical models for explaining the diffusion of
innovation were compared for 13 energy-related innovations the Theory of
Planned Behavior, the S-curve for Diffusion of Innovations, the power law
distribution, and the cusp catastrophe. The substantive concern was to explore
the roles of facilitative and obstructive factors in diffusing industrial and
commercial innovations. Participants were 102 industrial plant and facilities
managers from sites that were among the top users of electrical energy and natural
gas in the United States. They completed a survey that contained measurements of
positive attitudes toward innovation, organizational resistance to innovation,
and the extent to which they had investigated or adopted each of the target
innovations. Seven of the 13 innovations exhibited strong cusp catastrophe
models (via nonlinear regression, average R2 = .91) compared to linear
alternative models (average R2 = .31) for those innovations; the S-curve for
diffusion was regarded as a simplified version of the cusp. One innovation
was characterized best by a power law distribution (R2 = .94), and the
remaining five were characterized best by a linear model that was based on
the Theory of Planned Behavior (R2 = .41). Different underlying dynamics for
the various innovations were implied by these results. Keywords: cusp catastrophe, innovation diffusion, attitudes, energy, power law |