IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v13y2020i19p5063-d420268.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Conversion of Residential Heating Systems from Fossil Fuels to Biofuels: A Cross-Cultural Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Diana A. Londoño-Pulgarín

    (Department Marketing and Market Research, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Granada, Campus La Cartuja s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain)

  • Francisco Muñoz-Leiva

    (Department Marketing and Market Research, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Granada, Campus La Cartuja s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain)

  • Esmeralda Crespo-Almendros

    (Department Marketing and Market Research, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Granada, Campus La Cartuja s/n, 18071 Granada, Spain)

Abstract

This paper aims to analyse: (a) how the attitude towards renewable energy-based heating systems, pro-environmental behaviour and the perceived attributes of technology influence intention to convert residential heating systems from fossil fuels to biofuels, and (b) the moderating role of culture based on Hofstede’s individualism dimension. A total of 425 responses were collected from a panel of internet users from representative countries in three continents (the United States, the United Kingdom and South Africa); the data analysis was carried out using structural equation models in a multigroup analysis. The results showed that attitude towards renewable energy-based heating systems is influenced by environmental variables in the United States and the United Kingdom, and by the perceived attributes of clean residential heating systems in the United States and South Africa. Attitude, in turn, impacts on the intention to convert from fossil fuels to biofuels. In addition, individualism has a moderating effect between these variables and there are intercultural differences in the degree of importance attributed to them. The study concludes the use of these energy systems as drivers of environmentally-sustainable development.

Suggested Citation

  • Diana A. Londoño-Pulgarín & Francisco Muñoz-Leiva & Esmeralda Crespo-Almendros, 2020. "Conversion of Residential Heating Systems from Fossil Fuels to Biofuels: A Cross-Cultural Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-24, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:19:p:5063-:d:420268
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/19/5063/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/19/5063/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nyrud, Anders Q. & Roos, Anders & Sande, Jon Bingen, 2008. "Residential bioenergy heating: A study of consumer perceptions of improved woodstoves," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 3159-3166, August.
    2. Yun-Chin Paya Hsu & Fiona Chan, 2015. "Surveying Data on Consumer Green Purchasing Intention: A Case in New Zealand," International Journal of Business and Social Research, LAR Center Press, vol. 5(5), pages 1-14, May.
    3. Michelsen, Carl Christian & Madlener, Reinhard, 2012. "Homeowners' preferences for adopting innovative residential heating systems: A discrete choice analysis for Germany," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(5), pages 1271-1283.
    4. Rob Dellink & Hyunjeong Hwang & Elisa Lanzi & Jean Chateau, 2017. "International trade consequences of climate change," OECD Trade and Environment Working Papers 2017/1, OECD Publishing.
    5. Awerbuch, Shimon & Deehan, William, 1995. "Do consumers discount the future correctly? : A market-based valuation of residential fuel switching," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 57-69, January.
    6. Ajzen, Icek, 1991. "The theory of planned behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-211, December.
    7. Decker, Thomas & Menrad, Klaus, 2015. "House owners' perceptions and factors influencing their choice of specific heating systems in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 150-161.
    8. Sopha, Bertha Maya & Klöckner, Christian A., 2011. "Psychological factors in the diffusion of sustainable technology: A study of Norwegian households' adoption of wood pellet heating," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 2756-2765, August.
    9. Zhang, Jingyun & Beatty, Sharon E. & Walsh, Gianfranco, 2008. "Review and future directions of cross-cultural consumer services research," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 61(3), pages 211-224, March.
    10. Alam, Syed Shah & Nik Hashim, Nik Hazrul & Rashid, Mamunur & Omar, Nor Asiah & Ahsan, Nilufar & Ismail, Md Daud, 2014. "Small-scale households renewable energy usage intention: Theoretical development and empirical settings," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 255-263.
    11. Elisha R. Frederiks & Karen Stenner & Elizabeth V. Hobman, 2015. "The Socio-Demographic and Psychological Predictors of Residential Energy Consumption: A Comprehensive Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(1), pages 1-37, January.
    12. Michelsen, Carl Christian & Madlener, Reinhard, 2016. "Switching from fossil fuel to renewables in residential heating systems: An empirical study of homeowners' decisions in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 95-105.
    13. Alaswad, A. & Dassisti, M. & Prescott, T. & Olabi, A.G., 2015. "Technologies and developments of third generation biofuel production," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 1446-1460.
    14. Arabatzis, Garyfallos & Malesios, Chrisovalantis, 2013. "Pro-environmental attitudes of users and non-users of fuelwood in a rural area of Greece," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 22(C), pages 621-630.
    15. Park, Eunil & Ohm, Jay Y., 2014. "Factors influencing the public intention to use renewable energy technologies in South Korea: Effects of the Fukushima nuclear accident," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 198-211.
    16. Vasseur, Véronique & Kemp, René, 2015. "The adoption of PV in the Netherlands: A statistical analysis of adoption factors," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 483-494.
    17. Fernandez, Viviana P., 2001. "Observable and unobservable determinants of replacement of home appliances," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 305-323, May.
    18. Hoon Park & Clifford Russell & Junsoo Lee, 2007. "National culture and environmental sustainability: A cross-national analysis," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 31(1), pages 104-121, March.
    19. H. Peyton Young, 2009. "Innovation Diffusion in Heterogeneous Populations: Contagion, Social Influence, and Social Learning," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(5), pages 1899-1924, December.
    20. Wilhite, Harold & Nakagami, Hidetoshi & Masuda, Takashi & Yamaga, Yukiko & Haneda, Hiroshi, 1996. "A cross-cultural analysis of household energy use behaviour in Japan and Norway," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(9), pages 795-803, September.
    21. Sopha, Bertha Maya & Klöckner, Christian A. & Skjevrak, Geir & Hertwich, Edgar G., 2010. "Norwegian households' perception of wood pellet stove compared to air-to-air heat pump and electric heating," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(7), pages 3744-3754, July.
    22. Franceschinis, Cristiano & Thiene, Mara & Scarpa, Riccardo & Rose, John & Moretto, Michele & Cavalli, Raffaele, 2017. "Adoption of renewable heating systems: An empirical test of the diffusion of innovation theory," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 313-326.
    23. Edgar Sanabria Torres & Carlos Orlando Parra Penagos, 2013. "Caracterización del comprador sogamoseno en súper e hipermercados," Estudios Gerenciales, Universidad Icesi, March.
    24. van Rijnsoever, Frank J. & Farla, Jacco C.M., 2014. "Identifying and explaining public preferences for the attributes of energy technologies," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 71-82.
    25. Bradley L Kirkman & Kevin B Lowe & Cristina B Gibson, 2006. "A quarter century of Culture's Consequences: a review of empirical research incorporating Hofstede's cultural values framework," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 37(3), pages 285-320, May.
    26. Pavluković, Vanja & Armenski, Tanja & Alcántara-Pilar, Juan Miguel, 2017. "Social impacts of music festivals: Does culture impact locals' attitude toward events in Serbia and Hungary?," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 42-53.
    27. Wander Jager, Marco A. Janssen, Charles Viek, 2001. "Experimentation with household dynamics: the consumat approach," International Journal of Sustainable Development, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 4(1), pages 90-100.
    28. David A Waldman & Mary Sully de Luque & Nathan Washburn & Robert J House & Bolanle Adetoun & Angel Barrasa & Mariya Bobina & Muzaffer Bodur & Yi-Jung Chen & Sukhendu Debbarma & Peter Dorfman & Rosemar, 2006. "Cultural and leadership predictors of corporate social responsibility values of top management: a GLOBE study of 15 countries," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 37(6), pages 823-837, November.
    29. Gerard J. Tellis & Stefan Stremersch & Eden Yin, 2003. "The International Takeoff of New Products: The Role of Economics, Culture, and Country Innovativeness," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 22(2), pages 188-208, October.
    30. Balcombe, Paul & Rigby, Dan & Azapagic, Adisa, 2014. "Investigating the importance of motivations and barriers related to microgeneration uptake in the UK," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 403-418.
    31. Yun-Chin Paya Hsu & Fiona Chan, 2015. "Surveying Data on Consumer Green Purchasing Intention: A Case in New Zealand," International Journal of Business and Social Research, MIR Center for Socio-Economic Research, vol. 5(5), pages 1-14, May.
    32. Stephan Vachon, 2010. "International operations and sustainable development: Should national culture matter?," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(6), pages 350-361, November/.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hecher, Maria & Hatzl, Stefanie & Knoeri, Christof & Posch, Alfred, 2017. "The trigger matters: The decision-making process for heating systems in the residential building sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 288-306.
    2. Meles, Tensay Hadush & Ryan, Lisa & Mukherjee, Sanghamitra C., 2022. "Heterogeneity in preferences for renewable home heating systems among Irish households," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 307(C).
    3. Karytsas, Spyridon & Polyzou, Olympia & Karytsas, Constantine, 2019. "Factors affecting willingness to adopt and willingness to pay for a residential hybrid system that provides heating/cooling and domestic hot water," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 591-603.
    4. Karytsas, Spyridon & Theodoropoulou, Helen, 2014. "Public awareness and willingness to adopt ground source heat pumps for domestic heating and cooling," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 49-57.
    5. Karytsas, Spyridon, 2018. "An empirical analysis on awareness and intention adoption of residential ground source heat pump systems in Greece," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 167-179.
    6. Michelsen, Carl Christian & Madlener, Reinhard, 2015. "Beyond Technology Adoption: Homeowner Satisfaction with Newly Adopted Residential Heating Systems," FCN Working Papers 1/2015, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN).
    7. Victor Fernández-Guzmán & Edgardo R. Bravo, 2018. "Understanding Continuance Usage of Natural Gas: A Theoretical Model and Empirical Evaluation," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-17, August.
    8. Alisa Freyre & Stefano Cozza & Matthias Rüetschi & Meinrad Bürer & Marlyne Sahakian & Martin K. Patel, 2021. "How to Improve Effectiveness of Renewable Space Heating Programs by Better Understanding Homeowner—Installer Interactions," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-24, July.
    9. Michelsen, Carl Christian & Madlener, Reinhard, 2016. "Switching from fossil fuel to renewables in residential heating systems: An empirical study of homeowners' decisions in Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 95-105.
    10. Jingchao, Zhang & Kotani, Koji & Saijo, Tatsuyoshi, 2018. "Public acceptance of environmentally friendly heating in Beijing: A case of a low temperature air source heat pump," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 75-85.
    11. Ruokamo, Enni, 2016. "Household preferences of hybrid home heating systems – A choice experiment application," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 224-237.
    12. Michelsen, Carl Christian & Madlener, Reinhard, 2011. "Homeowners' Motivation to Adopt a Residential Heating System: A Principal-Component Analysis," FCN Working Papers 17/2011, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN), revised Jan 2013.
    13. Michelsen, Carl Christian & Madlener, Reinhard, 2013. "Motivational factors influencing the homeowners’ decisions between residential heating systems: An empirical analysis for Germany," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 221-233.
    14. McCoy, Daire & Curtice, John, 2018. "Exploring the spatial and temporal determinants of gas central heating adoption," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86625, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    15. Ortega-Izquierdo, Margarita & Paredes-Salvador, Andrés & Montoya-Rasero, Carlos, 2019. "Analysis of the decision making factors for heating and cooling systems in Spanish households," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 175-185.
    16. Curtis, John & Tovar, Miguel Angel & Grilli, Gianluca, 2020. "Access to and consumption of natural gas: Spatial and socio-demographic drivers," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    17. Li, Pei-Hao & Keppo, Ilkka & Strachan, Neil, 2018. "Incorporating homeowners' preferences of heating technologies in the UK TIMES model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 716-727.
    18. Chen, Qiu, 2021. "District or distributed space heating in rural residential sector? Empirical evidence from a discrete choice experiment in South China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 148(PA).
    19. Alipour, M. & Salim, H. & Stewart, Rodney A. & Sahin, Oz, 2020. "Predictors, taxonomy of predictors, and correlations of predictors with the decision behaviour of residential solar photovoltaics adoption: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).
    20. Selvakkumaran, Sujeetha & Ahlgren, Erik O., 2019. "Determining the factors of household energy transitions: A multi-domain study," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 54-75.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:19:p:5063-:d:420268. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.