Attitudes and behaviour of adopters of technological innovations in agricultural tractors: A case study in Italian agricultural system

Agricultural system has a significant application of technology innovations, such as agricultural tractors, which are the most important and widespread machine in this industry. The behaviour of tractors' users, concerning the introduction and adoption of innovative characteristics, has received low attention. The study here analyses the attitude and opinion of a sample of Italian users of agricultural tractors, concerning some innovations, to outline different profiles of behaviour. The sample is based on 228 farmers, contractors and employees, participating at International Exhibition of Agricultural Machinery. Data are analysed by Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Cluster Analysis. The results show three separate groups of adopters of agricultural tractors by their attitude towards technological innovations in these vital machines: the Unwilling users, neither use innovative tractors, nor would like to have tractors equipped with new technological innovations, the Willing-Cultural users have traditional machines but would like to have innovative tractors in the future, and the Innovative-Owner adopters have and use ground-breaking tractors. In particular, the Unwilling category identifies a not negligible market for manufacturers, requesting very essential tractors without any innovative features. The Innovative-Owner category, by a market pull model, can support the technological trajectory of the tractors' manufacturers due to their high degree of adoption of new technologies and interest in further new innovations. The attitude by Willing-cultural users may originate an additional trajectory of innovation for tractors and a new business opportunity for manufacturers, based on low cost or simplified version of complex innovative features in tractors. These different profiles can be useful to manufactures and innovation developers to better identify target-adopters, to develop innovations that satisfy needs of wide segments of adopters, and speed up technology transfer. Furthermore, the knowledge of these profiles could be useful for policymakers to support fruitful policy in agricultural systems. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.