LONG-LASTING EFFECTS OR SHORT-TERM SPARK? ON THE PERSISTENCE OF BEHAVIOUR CHANGE INDUCED BY REAL-TIME FEEDBACK ON RESOURCE CONSUMPTION

In the promotion of sustainable consumer behaviour, it is important to establish a mental relation between one’s behaviour and its environmental impact. High hopes rest on timely feedback on personal energy consumption in order to create this link. Great efforts are being put into the development of information systems to achieve this, and smart meters are being deployed as an enabling technology worldwide. Recent smart metering trials, which provide feedback on aggregate household electricity consumption, report moderate savings of 2-5%. There is, however, a vivid controversy about consumer interest and continuous use of these technologies in the long run. This uncertainty introduces substantial risk to the deployment of these technologies, as the persistence of savings is crucial for the cost-benefit analyses and scalability of these programs. This paper investigates the long-term stability of the behaviour change induced by a real-time feedback technology. Our initial study found average energy savings of 22% for the target behaviour. In this study, we analyse 17,612 data points collected in a one-year follow-up field study. The results suggest that the effects of behaviour-specific feedback on energy consumption do not exhibit a significant decay, indicating that this kind of technology successfully induces persistent behaviour change

Technology Adoption vs. Continuous Usage Intention: do Decision Criteria Change when Using a Technology?

Various models in Information Systems (IS) research seek to understand why individuals embrace or resist the adoption or use of a technology. Different models analyze the factors shaping user intentions at different stages of technology adoption and use. Yet, less is known how the factors shaping adoption intention subsequently evolve into continuous usage intention as users become (more) familiar with the technology. This paper investigates participants’ (N=549) adoption and continuous usage intention of a smartphone application for energy efficiency twice: at two different stages of experience, but for the same technology, in the same setting, and in particular with the same sample. In both cases, we use the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT1&2). While UTAUT explains adoption intention well, we find only moderate support for continuous usage intention. In line with prior research, our data suggests that beliefs are updated from adoption to continuous usage stage

The Acceptance of AI-based Recommendations: An Elaboration Likelihood Perspective

Algorithmic advice has been shown to outperform human reasoning in various domains. However, prior research suggests that humans might be reluctant to accept it and proposed multiple avenues to increase the acceptance. To structure these approaches and potentially shed light on inconclusive results of prior studies, we propose a novel perspective on the acceptance of AI-based recommendations based on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM). This research in progress paper introduces our perspective on AI-based recommendations as persuasive messages, suggests the ELM as a promising approach to guide interventions aiming to increase their acceptance, and develops testable hypotheses to evaluate the model. We, thereby, include the moderating effects of individual and situational variables

Peer-to-Peer Energy Trading in the Real World: Market Design and Evaluation of the User Value Proposition

Electricity markets are experiencing a shift to a more decentralized structure with small distributed renewable generation sources like residential photovoltaic systems. Simultaneously, information systems have driven the development of a “sharing economy” also in the electricity sector and can enable previously passive consumers to directly trade solar electricity in local communities. However, it is unclear how such peer-to-peer (P2P) markets should be designed to create value for the user. In a framed field experiment, we design and implement Switzerland’s first real-world P2P electricity market in a local community. We examine its value proposition for the users and elicit user preferences by enabling the participants to directly influence buy and sell prices for local solar energy. The collected empirical evidence suggests that the P2P exchange is beneficial for users and provides incentives for generation of renewable energy. The results create valuable insights for the design and diffusion of future energy markets

Empowering Consumers to Make Environmentally Sustainable Online Shopping Decisions: A Digital Nudging Approach

An ever-increasing share of people is using online shopping to satisfy their consumer needs. This has led to a vivid discussion regarding the environmental sustainability of e-commerce that also emphasized the role that consumer's decisions can play in mitigating its negative impacts. However, while many individuals state that they are willing to act more sustainably, they often struggle to follow through with their `green' intentions. We propose digital nudging as an approach to encourage environmentally sustainable online shopping decisions and empower consumers to act in line with their intentions. In an online experiment with 323 participants, we evaluate the effectiveness of three different nudging interventions (defaults, active choice, and self-nudging) to promote environmentally sustainable shipping options in an online store and assess the consumers' ethics and empowerment perceptions of the nudges. We find that all nudges are effective in changing decisions, but default nudges lead to negative perceptions among consumers

Feldexperiment zur Wirksamkeit von konkretem vs. abstraktem Eco-Driving Feedback

Eco-Driving Feedback Informationssysteme haben das Potenzial, auf sehr rasche und effiziente Weise zur Reduktion von Spritverbrauch und CO2 im Strassentransportwesen beizutragen. Vor allem neuere vernetzte Fahrzeuge bieten durch die zunehmende Digitalisierung der Cockpits viel Freiraum zur Gestaltung und Untersuchung von Eco-Driving Feedback. Neben klassischen „Spritverbrauchs-Tachos findet man heutzutage auch eher abstrakte Formen der Informationsdarbietung, z.B. animierte Pflanzen, die in Abhängigkeit vom Spritverbrauch wachsen oder schrumpfen. Diese Möglichkeiten werfen wichtige Fragen auf: Welche Art der Informationsdarbietung ändert das Fahrverhalten kurzfristig und langfristig effektiver? Welche Fahrverhaltensweisen (z.B. Bremsverhalten) werden in welchem Masse beeinflusst? Hängen eventuelle Effekte von bestimmten Moderatoren ab? Um diese Fragen zu untersuchen, wurde ein Eco-Driving Feedback System entwickelt, welches den Spritverbrauch des Fahrzeugs auf klassisch „konkrete Art einerseits und auf eher abstrakte Art andererseits anzeigt. Die Auswirkungen auf Fahrverhalten und Spritverbrauch sollen in einem Feldexperiment unter Alltagsbedingungen mit 72 Pannenservice-Fahrern untersucht werden

The Role of Self-Set Goals in IS-Enabled Behavior Change

IS-enabled feedback interventions and self-tracking devices have shown to successfully induce behav- ior change in various professional and private domains. However, in particular for private contexts, the mechanisms that govern these processes are not well understood. Based on goal-setting theory, we identify self-set goals as a potential driver of behavior change induced by IS-enabled feedback. In a two-month field study, we provide activity-specific real-time feedback on resource consumption to 413 households and study the formation of self-set resource conservation goals in response. We chose showering as an example of an energy-intensive, habitual low-involvement target activity. The results suggest that IS-enabled real-time feedback successfully induces most individuals to set themselves a goal without exhortation, even for this kind of low-involvement activity. Against the predictions of goal-setting theory, we find that individuals tend to set themselves ambitious goals. In line with goal- setting theory, individuals who set themselves ambitious goals conserve more resources. Given the difficulty of defining adequate goals externally, and the risk of goal rejection and adverse reactions associated with externally assigned goals, the results suggest that personal IS should encourage users to self-set goals