Choice design as key to technology adoption - A research agenda in the domain of electric cars

Whether an innovation is adopted or rejected by a consumer depends not only on technological, economic or social factors but also on psychological attributes of the decision maker (Kleijnen et al., 2009). Furthermore, according to studies from the domain of behavioral economics, there is evidence that the design of the decision situation itself has a significant impact on the final decision as well (Thaler et al., 2013). The goal of the research proposed in this paper is to apply insights from innovation resistance theory and behavioral economics to the case of technology adoption, that is (1) to consider psychological aspects in the design of technology adoption settings and (2) to evaluate the effect such consciously designed choices have on real adoption decisions. As part of the study, several experiments will be conducted to test the influence of different choice designs on the perception and adoption of electric vehicles and to identify potential strategies for the design of decision settings that are supportive to their adoption.