Is it awesome enough?

Is it awesome enough?

The influence of awe-inspiring nature on innovation adoption and the

moderating role of openness to experience and nature relatedness

Innovation

takes up a huge part of today’s modern world and

its success is crucial.

Innovation adoption

is a “multistage

process” in which different types of cognitive and affective

domains are triggered in consumers’ minds. Affective

responses, specifically,

positive emotions

are able to bias

consumers’ judgments and evaluations.

 Important source of

economic growth

 Helps for GDP growth

 Boosts R&D performance

 Creates additional value

for customers and

organizations

 Increase competitive

advantage

Innovation

Adoption Process

 Communicating the

innovation through

channels

 Contains uncertainty

 Knowledge, persuasion,

decision, implementation,

and confirmation

 Adoption intention and

adoption behavior

 Important source of

economic growth

 Helps for GDP growth

 Boosts R&D performance

 Creates additional value

for customers and

organizations

 Increase competitive

advantage

Innovation

Adoption Process

Emotions

 Crucial influencing factor

on people’s everyday

decisions.

 In marketing: emotions are

ubiquitous - influence

consumers’ behavior.

 Positive emotions

 “affect-as-information”

 Affective responses can

effect product adoption.

 Communicating the

innovation through

channels

 Contains uncertainty

 Knowledge, persuasion,

decision, implementation,

and confirmation

 Adoption intention and

adoption behavior

 Important source of

economic growth

 Helps for GDP growth

 Boosts R&D performance

 Creates additional value

for customers and

organizations

 Increase competitive

advantage

Innovation

Adoption Process

Emotions

Awe

 Crucial influencing factor

on people’s everyday

decisions.

 In marketing: emotions are

ubiquitous - influence

consumers’ behavior.

 Positive emotions

 “affect-as-information”

 Affective responses can

effect product adoption.

 Communicating the

innovation through

channels

 Contains uncertainty

 Knowledge, persuasion,

decision, implementation,

and confirmation

 Adoption intention and

adoption behavior

 Important source of

economic growth

 Helps for GDP growth

 Boosts R&D performance

 Creates additional value

for customers and

organizations

 Increase competitive

advantage

 “multi-stage process”

 Natural stimuli

 Positively valenced

 Small self

 Vastness and need for

accommodation

 challenging existing

mental structures

 Individual is more

Adopter Traits

 Innovators, early adopters, early

majority, late majority, and laggards

 Innovativeness – personality

characteristic; willingness to

change

 Innovativeness is important

predictor for adoption intention

and behavior.

Adopter Traits

 Innovators, early adopters, early

majority, late majority, and laggards

 Innovativeness – personality

characteristic; willingness to

change

 Innovativeness is important

predictor for adoption intention

and behavior.

 Innate innovativeness - tendency to

seek out new experiences

Openness

 Associated with awe.

 Relationship with creativity,

divergent thinking, as well

as intelligence.

 Sensitive to art and beauty

 Score high on

innovativeness,

imagination, are

Adopter Traits

Nature Relatedness

 Affective, cognitive, and

experiential relationship

between individuals and

nature.

 Facilitate positive affect

 Correlate with OPE

 Engagement with

nature’s beauty

Openness

 Innovators, early adopters, early

majority, late majority, and laggards

 Innovativeness – personality

characteristic; willingness to

change

 Innovativeness is important

predictor for adoption intention

and behavior.

 Innate innovativeness - tendency to

seek out new experiences

 Associated with awe.

 Relationship with creativity,

divergent thinking, as well

as intelligence.

 Sensitive to art and beauty

 Score high on

innovativeness,

imagination, are

VS.

Manipulation

Awe nature video condition

Mundane nature video condition

 Random assignment of participants between conditions

Materials

Vegan meat burger

Measures

 Emotions & Smallness: two scales adopted from Piff et al.

(2015).

 Innovation Adoption: (1) Level of acceptance of product is

measured; (2) Min and max willingness to pay is

measured.

 Product innovativeness

 Product involvement

 Nature relatedness: Short-form Nature relatedness scale

(NR-6) (Nisbet & Zelenski, 2013).

4.53

5.02

1.35

_1.24

1.49

5.63

2.53

4.63

3.98

4.27

1.71

1.76

1.71

5.22

2.45

4.14

Amusement Awe Disgust Anger Fear Happiness Sadness Smallness

Awe

Mundane

Manipulation

p=.03

_p=.06

p=.07

p=.02

H3: Openness to experience positively

moderates the relationship between awe and

product innovation adoption.

4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 5 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6

Low Average High

4 4.2 4.4 4.6 4.8 5 5.2 5.4

Low Average High

Roll

ab

le

TV

adop

tio

n

Openness to experience

H3: Openness to experience positively

moderates the relationship between awe and

product innovation adoption.

H5: Nature relatedness positively moderates

Why there is no

significance?

Awe increases systematic processing.

Openness and Nature relatedness might influence only

certain types of products.

Product involvement is considered as a factor

Why there is no

significance?

Innovative products might have caused uncertainty.

Limitations

 Small sample, no robust conclusions can be drawn.



Highly homogeneous sample when it comes to

demographics.



_{Time constraints: (1) responses gathered in 1}

week; (2) survey had to take ~10minutes.

Limitations



_{3 minutes video, this might cause boredom and}

fatigue.



_{Online survey, no control over participants’}

attention.



_{Video manipulation might have not induced}

enough awe in individuals.



_{Only adopter characteristics considered, but not}

product innovation characteristics.

Implications

Smallness

Car

sharing

adoption

Consumer characteristics matter!

Exploratory findings show that

product innovativeness and

Implications

 This study serves as groundwork for

testing the awe-innovation relationship.

 Future research suggestions can be

guidance for researchers.

 Further research is needed and managers should invest in R&D before relying

on results of this study.

 Results are inconclusive and direct introduction of awe for marketing

purposes with regards to innovation adoption is not advised.

 It is only by gaining better understanding of the innovation adoption process

and its influencing factors that enhanced success of innovations will be

reached, leading to successful organizations and consecutively blooming

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