A study of the method using search traffic to analyze new technology adoption

Various types of indices have been developed and applied for the purpose of identifying emergent technologies and forecasting their adoption. Recently, researchers have proposed search traffic analysis as a new method for tracking changes among consumers and utilizing this information to conduct further market research. Now with the onset of big data era, various attempts are being made to analyze the immense body of information made available by hidden traces left behind by consumers. In the same vein, our present study seeks to draw attention to the analytical advantages of utilizing search traffic. In this study, we use search traffic to analyze the adoption process of a new technology, in this case the technology of hybrid cars, for the purpose of verifying the potential value of conducting adoption analysis based on search traffic and we also propose a more refined method of analysis. First, we undertook to examine the keyword unit used in the searches, in order to refine our analysis of search traffic and thereby obtain greater practical utility. This was accomplished by comparing technology searches that specified the technology name with searches that specified the brand name. For each respective case, we also performed comparative analyses examining instances in which consumers simultaneously included the representative attributes of a product in their search.Our research found that the traffic of searches that specify a product's brand name was significant for explaining sales. Therefore, in the conclusion of this paper we argue that if the unit of search is properly refined, search traffic can indeed serve as an extremely useful method for analyzing or forecasting sales volume. Notably, brand-focused search traffic exhibited a superior ability to forecast sales volume compared to macro-indicators such as GDP growth or WTI prices that had been used to forecast car demand in preceding studies. Forecasting based on search traffic was even superior to forecasts using other bibliometric indices such as patent applications or news coverage.     

中国电动汽车技术演进分析：行动者网络视角

从专利、车型和销量着手，将中国电动汽车发展进程大体划分为3个阶段，即纯电动汽车阶段、混合动力汽车和燃料电池汽车同步发展中纯、电动汽车和混合动力汽车竞相发展阶段、以纯电动汽车为主导的发展阶段。每一阶段行动者网络不同，关键行动者也不尽相同。基于行动者网络理论对中国电动汽车技术创新演进过程进行研究，得到以下结论：①中国电动汽车技术创新行动者网络主体和结构的改变影响着电动汽车相关技术创新的选择与发展；②非人类行动者在电动汽车技术创新演进过程中发挥着重要作用；③中国电动汽车技术创新演进是不同时期行动者网络成员共同作用的结果。     

Is the transport system becoming ubiquitous? Socio-technical roadmapping as a tool for integrating the development of transport policies and intelligent transport systems and services in Finland

This paper examines the main development characteristics within the transport system as we are approaching the ubiquitous phase of the information society. Particularly the challenges in designing transport policies on a rapidly evolving technological frontier are emphasised. The theoretical background of the paper stems from policy assessment as well as futures studies, especially from technology roadmapping. The paper presents a socio-technical roadmapping method as a tool to integrate the technology developments better with societal developments and transport policy design. The method is tested with a Finnish case study, which provides three thematic, complementary roadmaps of the potential transport system technology services of the future. The roadmaps illustrate what kind of technologies, services, actors and related policy relevant knowledge is needed in satisfying the demands of transport policy development in the future's ubiquitous society. The case study reveals several changes in the transport system: pluralised number of actor roles and actor networks in the system, emergence of a new kind of business and service layer because of the new dynamic inter-linkages between the actors, and further, possibility to capture the service layer with the concept of “technology service”. The changes require also re-conceptualisation of knowledge production to support transport policies. In conclusion, the socio-technical roadmapping holds great potentials as a tool for aligning technology development with transport policy development.     

Normative expectations in systems innovation

This paper is concerned with the way technological expectations are generated, articulated and deployed in processes of large-scale socio-technical change. We argue that expectations are intrinsic to all social action, so that visions of the future are both ubiquitous and context-specific. Agents will act in relation to private visions of the future that are complexly related to shared or collective visions. Characteristic features and forms of visions as they relate to socio-technical regimes are identified, and the specific roles visions play in the context of actor networks engaged in processes of systems innovation are discussed. Visions are seen as 'bids' that are deployed by actors in processes of coalition-formation and coordination. Examples from a range of visions of more sustainable systems are used to illustrate the main arguments. The paper ends by discussing the normative features of socio-technical expectations.     

Expectations as a key to understanding actor strategies in the field of fuel cell and hydrogen vehicles

Due to its environmental impact, the mobility system is increasingly under pressure. The challenges to cope with climate change, air quality, depleting fossil resources imply the need for a transition of the current mobility system towards a more sustainable one. Expectations and visions have been identified as crucial in the guidance of such transitions, and more specifically of actor strategies. Still, it remained unclear why the actors involved in transition activities appear to change their strategies frequently and suddenly. The empirical analysis of the expectations and strategies of three actors in the field of hydrogen and fuel cell technology indicates that changing actor strategies can be explained by rather volatile expectations related to different levels. Our case studies of the strategies of two large car manufacturers and the German government demonstrate that the car manufacturers refer strongly to expectations about the future regime, while expectations related to the socio-technical landscape level appear to be crucial for the strategy of the German government.     

Mapping expectations for system transformations: Lessons from Sustainability Foresight in German utility sectors

Expectations held by different actor groups are of key importance for the shaping of socio-technical transformation processes. Foresight activities may be interpreted as a means to elicit, aggregate, modulate and contextualize expectations held by different actors. The paper proposes a conceptual framework that allows assessing and reflecting expectations in foresight initiatives that focus on sustainable sector transformations. For this purpose it draws on the recent literature on socio-technical system transformations and social expectation dynamics. The application of the framework is illustrated by experiences gained with the Sustainability Foresight method developed for the case of sustainable utility sector futures in Germany. The process was conceived as a series of participative scenario and strategy workshops involving about 120 stakeholders from the provision, use and governance of utility services.     

Separating the Roles of Speculators and Consumers: a Model of Futures Trade

The general equilibrium model of Britto (1984) is criticised. In particular, it is shown that allowing consumers to trade on the futures market leads to more complicated results than necessary. If consumers do not trade futures, and only producers and speculators do, results are greatly simplified. Consumer risk parameters, and parameters of producers production function are irrelevant. The differential between the futures price and the expected spot price, and the direction of futures trade is shown to depend in a straightforward way on the price elasticity of demand for the product on the spot market.     

Managing the Technological Transition to Sustainable Construction of Buildings: A Socio-Technical Perspective

The construction of buildings brings about a substantial ecological load: about 40% of energy consumption and about 25% of material moved by our economy is due to the construction of buildings. New construction technologies and new building components would allow us to reduce the ecological load of buildings to a fraction of its present value. However, the problem of making our building stock more sustainable is only to a minor extent a technical one. The required change of technologies can only be managed by simultaneously taking into account technical potentials and their social context. Social studies of technology, with their focus on the construction of technologies as an interactive effort of various actors and on the inseparability of the social and technical side of sociotechnical systems provide a perspective to better understand the processes involved in the construction and dissemination of sustainable buildings. A number of strategies to manage technical change towards sustainability will be discussed: better integration of various actors at the supply side, shift to a market for innovative and ecological building services, improvement of user-producer relationships and integration of consumers into the innovation process.     

Managing the Technological Transition to Sustainable Construction of Buildings: A Socio-Technical Perspective

The construction of buildings brings about a substantial ecological load: about 40% of energy consumption and about 25% of material moved by our economy is due to the construction of buildings. New construction technologies and new building components would allow us to reduce the ecological load of buildings to a fraction of its present value. However, the problem of making our building stock more sustainable is only to a minor extent a technical one. The required change of technologies can only be managed by simultaneously taking into account technical potentials and their social context. Social studies of technology, with their focus on the construction of technologies as an interactive effort of various actors and on the inseparability of the social and technical side of sociotechnical systems provide a perspective to better understand the processes involved in the construction and dissemination of sustainable buildings. A number of strategies to manage technical change towards sustainability will be discussed: better integration of various actors at the supply side, shift to a market for innovative and ecological building services, improvement of user-producer relationships and integration of consumers into the innovation process.     

Advertising and search engines. A model of leadership in search advertising

We analyze the role of leadership in a multi-sided market as search advertising, assuming quantity competition and different entry conditions (with barriers to entry or endogenous entry). The model can be microfounded taking into account network effects, multi-homing on the advertising side and scale in search. If there are barriers to entry and the network effects are strong, there is an incentive for the leader to exploit them and attract more consumers to monopolize advertising. Under barriers to entry, the leading platform has also a strategic incentive to exploit scale in search, to manipulate search results to divert search traffic from other platforms, and to introduce limits to multi-homing, with the aim of expanding its market share and deny scale to competitors.     

Consumer support for environmental policies: An application to purchases of green cars

This paper focuses on how consumer motivation can be tapped in order to encourage the adoption of cleaner technologies. Consumers are heterogeneous — they may be guided by intrinsic motivation or extrinsic motivation. While information provision policies (such as the energy label for cars) may be effective in encouraging certain consumers to adopt green cars, financial incentive schemes (such as subsidies or fines) may be more persuasive for extrinsically-motivated consumers. We develop a dynamic theory of adoption of environmental innovations, in which information-provision policies are followed by financial incentives (first ‘carrot’, then ‘stick’ incentives). Analysis of a survey dataset of Swiss households observes considerable heterogeneity in terms of support of information-provision or financial incentive policies, in line with our conjectures. Our results will be of particular interest to policymakers interested in guiding consumers towards cleaner technologies.     

Market institutions and economic evolution

Our cognitive limitations cause us to rely on institutions to guide reasonable behaviour; market institutions reduce the costs of search, negotiation, and monitoring entailed in making single transactions. The making of markets requires an investment of immaterial capital, the major share of which typically is provided by those who expect to be very active on one side of the market. This `external organisation' provides producers with information for the development of new products; by simplifying transactions it also allows consumers greater scope for developing consumption capabilities. Thus the evolution of institutions guides the evolution of goods and services.     

The hunt for S-shaped growth paths in technological innovation: a patent study*

Since the works by the business cycle theorists in the 1930s, no attempts have been made to study empirically the long term evolution paths of individual technologies starting with long time series. This is an empirical exploration and confirmation of the now almost assumed image or metaphor of the way technology develops; that it follows an S-shaped growth path which is commonly associated with a similar shaped diffusion function of entrepreneurial activity. The paper also confirms the diversity of technology dynamics and explores how technological cycle takeoffs appear to be clustered within certain historical epochs. The results have implications for our understanding of the evolution paths of individual technologies, and of the evolution of technological systems and waves of innovation. By use of computational statistics, logistic growth functions are fitted to US patent stocks, 1920–1990, at a detailed level of aggregation, including chemical, electrical/electronic, mechanical, transport and non-industrial technologies. Some practical considerations when developing an empirically testable model of innovation cycles are addressed in the paper as well.     

基于农产品质量安全的技术扩散博弈分析

在有限理性的假设下,本文采用演化博弈论方法,分析了生产者之间、生产者和消费者之间以及生产者和政府监管部门之间相互作用时的策略选择行为,揭示出经济利益是影响质量安全技术扩散的主要内在因素。因此,若要遏制不安全技术行为的发生,一是要减少生产者的违规收益,严厉处罚并提高其生产成本;二是引导消费者增加对安全农产品的需求;三是加强对监管者的再规制,提高其监测能力、监管频率等。     

Simulating the adoption of fuel cell vehicles

Supply security and environmental concerns associated with oil call for an introduction of hydrogen as a transport fuel. To date, scenario studies of infrastructure build-up and sales of fuel cell vehicles (FCVs) are driven by cost estimates and technological feasibility assumptions, indicating that there is a “chicken and egg problem”: Car producers do not offer FCVs as long as there are no hydrogen filling stations, and infrastructure will not be set up unless there is a significant number of FCVs on the road. This diffusion barrier is often used as an argument for a major (public) infrastructure program, neglecting the fact that the automobile market is highly competitive and car producers, consumers, and filling station operators form an interdependent dynamic system, where taxes influence technology choice. In this paper, an agent-based model is used that captures the main interdependencies to simulate possible diffusion paths of FCVs. The results suggest that a tax on conventional cars can successfully promote diffusion even without a major infrastructure program. However, consumers and individual producers are affected differently by the tax, indicating that differently strong resistance towards such a policy can be anticipated. Moreover, there is evidence that some producers might benefit from cooperation with filling station operators to generate a faster build-up of infrastructure.

改善我国股市生态的理论思考

如果从理论源头上追溯的话,传统发展观是构成我国股市生态系统脆弱的根源.股市"物理环境"即制度安排存在的巨大缺陷,股市生态系统中"生产者"生产能力低下,"生产者"与"消费者"角色错位,股市生态系统中不同"消费者"之间数量关系的失衡,股市生态系统中"分解者"的缺失,造成了我国股市生态系统的不稳定.再造健康的股市生态,我们就必须正本清源,突破传统发展观的樊篱,用科学发展观的观点认识和解决股市中的各种问题和矛盾.     

Consumer demand for local honey

How to best target and attract niche market consumers is an important marketing problem for producers of specialty agricultural products. It is particularly an issue in the honey market where consumers increasingly face media messages regarding threats to honey bee health, honey adulteration and health benefits of locally produced honey. Using auction experiments, this research evaluates consumer behaviour related to informational messages about honey that is produced locally, domestically and internationally. Results from 115 adult consumers show that consumers’ demand for honey varies significantly based on the geographic location of the honey’s production, product packaging and the information they have about the product. Consumers demonstrate greater demand for locally produced honey, especially when provided information about negative aspects of internationally produced honey that include adulteration. This shows that such negative media attention on specialty products offers small producers an opportunity to increase profitability by marketing themselves as a specialized niche alternative.     

Voting with the wallet

The vote with the wallet is a new, emerging feature of economic participation and democracy in the globally integrated market economy. This expression identifies the pivotal role that responsible consumption and investment can play in addressing social and environmental emergencies which have been aggravated by the asymmetry of power between domestic institutions and global corporations. In this paper, we examine (both in general and by using examples drawn from the financial and non-financial sectors) how ??voting?? for producers which are at the forefront of a three-sided efficiency which reconciles the creation of economic value with social and environmental responsibility may generate contagion effects by triggering ethical imitation of traditional profit-maximizing actors, thereby enhancing the production of positive social and environmental externalities. Within this new framework, policies that reduce the search and information costs of voting with the wallet may help socioeconomic systems to exploit the bottom-up market forces of other-regarding preferences, thereby enhancing opportunities to achieve well-being with reduced top-down government intervention.     

QUALITY-ASSURING PRICE AND BREACH OF EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY

If consumers cannot discern quality prior to purchase, firms may use both court enforcement and the market mechanism to assure quality. But the level of warranty protection that firms choose to offer depends on the efficiency of the market. As the ability of consumers to communicate information concerning quality among themselves (market efficiency) increases, the level of warranty protection that maximizes consumer surplus falls. In highly efficient markets, producers do not offer a warranty. Thus, courts should not imply a warranty if producers do not specify one. In addition, the level of warranty protection depends on the courts' ability to distinguish between producer and consumer moral hazard.     

A Method for Identifying Actors in a Knowledge Based Cluster

The objective of the paper is to develop a method through which we can identify the actors (industrial, institutional and individual) who are active in technology development in the same or similar knowledge fields. The paper is, thus, aimed to make a methodological contribution to the literature, which has emerged on the systemic nature of innovation. The method involves broadening out from a starting point in a specific patent class, which corresponds as closely as possibly to the technological area of interest, to a set of related patent classes by using co-classifications and citations. After close scrutiny of both patent classes and patents, the actors in the new classes, as well as in the original class, are then identified. We try out the method on radio wave antennas for communication technology in Sweden. We find a range of firms and other actors in a whole set of industries, which bear little relation to one another in an input-output sense. Although we cannot ascertain the extent of linkages or relations between these actors, our hypothesis is that they constitute a cluster around radio wave antenna technology in Sweden.