Communication and Trust: Leverage Points for Extension in Innovation Adoption and Discontinuance Experiences of Greenhouse Growers
Keywords:
Diffusion Of Innovations, Horticulture, Technology, Adoption, Greenhouse Growers, Discontinuance', Extension EducationAbstract
This phenomenological study was underpinned by both value-belief-norm (VBN) and diffusion of innovations (DI) theories to explore the adoption/continuance experiences of three mid-size greenhouse growing operations with a new-to-market advanced growing system. We collected data using Rapid Evaluation and Assessment (REA) methods to understand growers’ adoption/rejection decision-making behaviors and explored factors that influenced their confirmation decisions of an advanced growing system that held the potential to significantly reduce production costs if adopted. We identified three themes (a) value alignment; (b) reliable hardware; and (c) software integrity that contributed to the phenomenological essence: Communication and trust: Leverage points in the software/hardware overlap. Our findings suggested that growers’ experiences and confirmation decisions were influenced by a lack of technological observability, reinforced by miscommunication and distrust in evidence and interactions with the change agent. We provide recommendations for practitioners such as horticultural Extension professionals, grant managers, inventors, product developers, and horticultural industry representatives, to facilitate information sharing and enhance transparency and accountability when diffusing an advanced growing system with greenhouse growers. Research to further explore change-agent role conflict and its impact on project adoption that engages growers and similar publics is needed to understand responsible, sustainable research and innovation diffusion.
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