Effect of Innovation on Agri-Technology Adoption in the Presence of a Moderator

Abstract

Technology adoption phenomenon is contextual and same is widely recognized as a research notion across the agriculture, industry and service sectors alike. In the present research study, the relationship of innovation characteristics on adoption of agri-tech is being examined in the context of Sri Lanka. Quantitative methods including correlation, ANOVA, ANCOVA, regression, mediation analyses were used for the research. The empirical evidence supported positive relationship of Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU), Perceived Usefulness (PU) variables and Innovation (INO) variable towards Adoption of Agri-Tech (AAT) by correlation analysis and hierarchical regression analysis. Presence of differences in AAT between low income category agriculturalists and higher income categories were also supported by contrast test of ANOVA. ANCOVA revealed that the covariate; age was not significantly related to the AAT while the moderation analysis has confirmed relationship between INO and AAT is being moderated by the age. Due to the time and resource constraints, sample has been restricted while the research is limited only to the quantitative method. Originality of the research could be recognized as there is only limited number of researches executed by integrating technology adoption model (TAM) along with additional variables such as innovation in agricultural sector, specifically in Sri Lankan context.