Abstract:
Adoption and technology diffusion are the processes governing the utilization of innovations. There is often
significant interval among the time of the innovation, availability in the market, and the time it is widely
used by customers. Barn automation in flue cured tobacco industry in Sri Lanka is a newly introduced
innovative technology to the tobacco farmers. However, this technology has been diffused among a few
farmers. Therefore, Theory of Planed Behavior Model was used to evaluate the adoption behavior of tobacco
farmers to the new technology and a logistic regression model was estimated to identify the determinants of
non adopter’s intention to use the technology. Two surveys were conducted for 54 adopters and 150 non
adopters respectively to gather data. Results proved that adopters almost agreed with the facilitating
condition, external influence, self efficacy and perceived user friendliness. Interpersonal influence toward
the adoption, self control of decision and perceived usefulness of the product are the dimensions
which were moderately agreed with by the barn owners. Results of the logistic regression indicated
that non adopters intention to use the automation technology have been significantly affected by barn
owners awareness about automation technology, attendance to the training program, negative
attitude towards the industrial uncertainty, perception towards the production cost, experience of the
barn owners and barn owners.
