[pt] A temática da Realidade Virtual concretiza sua aplicabilidade e vem se mostrando cada vez mais relevante como tecnologia para ultrapassar as barreiras físicas de comunicação e experimentação do aprendizado. Nesse contexto, a educação aparece como uma das áreas mais propensas a se beneficiar com essa tecnologia, visto que o uso da Realidade Virtual pode proporcionar experiências práticas inimagináveis na absorção de informações e ainda permitir interações complexas a distância, o que auxilia e inova as práticas e metodologias educacionais, contribuindo para a formação de profissionais capacitados aos desafios e necessidades do cenário tecnológico atual de mercado. O estudo propõe e testa um modelo de mensuração de fatores que podem influenciar a adoção da Realidade Virtual no ensino superior. Visando relacionar o tema da Realidade Virtual e a adoção de inovações, o modelo de estudo foi fundamentado nos atributos de inovação da teoria da difusão de inovações (IDT - ROGERS, 2003) e as hipóteses testaram os efeitos da vantagem relativa, da complexidade, da compatibilidade, da experimentabilidade, da observabilidade e da diversão percebida na atitude geral de adoção da Realidade Virtual, assim como o efeito de tal atitude na intenção de adoção dessa tecnologia. A pesquisa, de caráter quantitativo, tem por análise uma amostra de 382 estudantes do ensino superior público e/ou privado no Brasil. Os achados permitem inferir que diversos dos fatores estudados afetam a intenção de adoção da Realidade Virtual para o aprendizado, confirmando a maior parte das hipóteses da pesquisa. Os resultados da pesquisa representam avanços no conhecimento sobre adoção da Realidade Virtual na educação e sugerem importantes contribuições para estudantes e instituições de ensino superior, acerca da adoção e implementação de tecnologias de Realidade Virtual em práticas de ensino. / [en] The subject of Virtual Reality has solidified its applicability and shown itself to be increasingly relevant as a technology to overcome the physical barriers of communication and experiential learning. In this context, education appears as one of the areas most likely to benefit from this technology, since the use of Virtual Reality can provide unimaginable practical experiences in absorbing information as well as allowing for complex distance interactions, assisting and serving to innovate educational practices and methodologies, contributing to the qualification of professionals trained for the challenges and needs of the current technological market environment. The study proposes and tests a model for measuring factors that may influence the adoption of Virtual Reality in higher education. In order to relate the topic of Virtual Reality and innovation adoption, the study model was based on the innovation attributes of the innovation diffusion theory (IDT - ROGERS, 2003) and the hypotheses tested the effects of relative advantage, complexity, compatibility, trialability, observability and perceived playfulness in the general attitude of Virtual Reality adoption, as well as the effect of such attitude on the intention to adopt this technology. The quantitative research analyzes a sample of 382 students from public and / or private higher educational institutions in Brazil. The findings allow us to infer that several of the factors studied affect the intention to adopt Virtual Reality for learning, confirming most of the research hypotheses. The study results represent advances in knowledge about the adoption of Virtual Reality in education and suggest important contributions for students and higher education institutions, with regard to the adoption and implementation of Virtual Reality technologies in teaching practices.

Agroforestry (AF) or agroforestry innovation (AFI) production has long been and continues to be a component of the mixed farming system of Ethiopian and smallholder farmers worldwide. Interventions continue introducing new or improved management practices, species, and techniques to raise AFI's livelihood and natural resource management contributions. Despite considerable efforts, the adoption of these AFI continues to be limited, as proved by several adoption studies and development efforts. Formal and informal studies were conducted for decades to understand the problems for the low adoption of various AFI. Nevertheless, these studies generated redundant and marginally growing important information as it has weakly altered the course of development approaches and policy regulations. Learning from previous studies, researchers have been requesting more robust studies that help address existing knowledge gaps on adopting AFI. To respond to these calls, this PhD project examined the factors affecting the adoption of AFI by smallholders and Ethiopian farmers as a case study. The project builds upon previous studies to explore the diverse perspectives that influence the adoption of AFI. Literature assessment of recent studies indicated that several factors belonging to farmers and institutions influence the adoption of AFI. Simultaneously, we discovered that some issues were explored frequently (e.g., socioeconomic factors), whereas others (e.g., psychological factors) were largely ignored. Besides, researchers have followed the static assumption (i.e., adopt or non-adopt) and failed to learn the adoption process beyond a one-time decision. Additionally, the studies focused on discrete factors and activities and failed to comprehend the diverse perspectives and factors and their combined effect on eventual AFI adoption. Ultimately, learning from the larger adoption science and previous studies, we developed a comprehensive framework, 'AFI adoption framework' (chapter 4.1), that supports the meaningful assessment of adoption practices and comprehensively discovers factors influencing AFI adoption. The framework encompassed three compartmentalized and yet interlinked components that influence AFI adoption under smallholder contexts. The framework commended both distinct studies for exhaustive elaboration and simultaneously suggested holistic examination. Besides, it recommended minor and major modifications to the research approaches, such as proper treatment of variables in econometric models, incorporation of variables related to the psychological status, and employment of robust tools such as the real-options approach for profitability analysis. Based on this framework, we designed a project and conducted fieldwork in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, a typical smallholder context. We explored the household contexts (i.e., farm level and psychological), system level features, and innovation characteristics influencing smallholders' AFI adoption decisions. It employed mixed conventional and advanced analytical tools comprising content analysis, econometric models, principal component analysis, and financial discounting methods. Advanced methods comprehend process analysis and adoption dynamism. The results from discrete analysis indicated that socioeconomic factors, psychological constructs, system level features, and innovation attributes influence AFI adoption. Regarding innovation characteristics, the different attributes are foundations for undertaking AFI adoption decisions of smallholder farmers. Beyond adopt-non-adopt concepts, we found farmers continuously undertake follow-up adoptions of varying extents such as reduced, maintained, and increased. Based on our query and comparable to existing frameworks, the newly developed 'AFI adoption framework' is more reasonable to meaningfully investigate factors influencing AFI (and agricultural innovations) adoption under smallholder contexts. However, there is a need for precaution while employing the framework to more clearly discern the adoption process and reflect the integration among the factors and activities involved from the development to the adoption of AFI. This dissertation excluded empirical analysis of profitability and holistic assessment due to the voluminous nature of the dissertation.:PREFACE ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii SUMMARY iv ZUSAMMENFASSUNG vi LIST OF FIGURES ix LIST OF TABLES xi ACRONYMS xi 1. INTRODUCTION 1 1.1. Agroforestry in Ethiopia 1 1.2. Problem statement 4 1.3. Objectives and research questions 6 1.4. Scope of the study 7 1.5. Dissertation structure 8 2. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK 11 2.1. The adoption concept 11 2.2. Theoretical frameworks on adoption 12 2.3. The critique and research context 16 2.4. The AFI adoption analytical framework 17 2.5. Description of links between objectives and research questions 19 3. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 21 3.1. Description of the study area 21 3.2. Selection of innovations and farmers 22 3.3. Research methods 23 3.3.1. Data collection methods 23 3.3.2. Sampling technique and sample size 24 3.3.3. Data analysis 25 4. RESULTS 26 4.1. Agroforestry adoption as a systems concept: a review 27 4.2. Can a sequential analysis provide a more robust understanding of farmers’ adoption decisions? an example from an agroforestry adoption study in Ethiopia 58 4.3. Farmers’ intentions towards sustained agroforestry adoption: an application of the theory of planned behavior 88 4.4. Adoption under the influence of innovation attributes: the case of agroforestry innovations from Ethiopia 111 4.5. Influence of system level factors on adoption of agroforestry innovations 141 5. SYNTHESIS and CONCLUSION 170 5.1. Synthesis of key findings 170 5.1.1. State of AFI adoption research in SSA 170 5.1.2. Persistent calls for rigorous research 172 5.1.3. Critical factors affecting AFI adoption 173 5.1.4. Conceptualizing adoption as a complex decision process 175 5.2. Reflections on research method, theoretical framework, and generalization 177 5.2.1. Reflection on research methods and analytical generalization 177 5.2.2. Reflection on the theoretical framework and theoretical contribution 179 5.3. Outlook and suggestions 184 5.4.1. Recommendations for future research 185 5.4.2. Development and policy recommendations 186 5.5. Limitations of the study 186 REFERENCES 187 APPENDICES 192

Submitted by André Ferreira (andre.ferreira@ifba.edu.br) on 2016-05-24T15:51:55Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese de Doutorado-André Luiz Leite Ferreira - VersãoFinal_Repositório.pdf: 6855517 bytes, checksum: ff82706d245ad5e030b03832306907f4 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Auxiliadora da Silva Lopes (silopes@ufba.br) on 2016-05-25T14:46:11Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese de Doutorado-André Luiz Leite Ferreira - VersãoFinal_Repositório.pdf: 6855517 bytes, checksum: ff82706d245ad5e030b03832306907f4 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-05-25T14:46:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese de Doutorado-André Luiz Leite Ferreira - VersãoFinal_Repositório.pdf: 6855517 bytes, checksum: ff82706d245ad5e030b03832306907f4 (MD5) / CAPES / Esta pesquisa enfoca a influência dos estilos de tomada de decisão no processo decisório da adoção de inovações tecnológicas no Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia da Bahia (IFBA). A tese está embasada principalmente na teoria de difusão de inovações e na teoria das decisões. Trata-se de uma pesquisa de enfoque predominantemente qualitativo, com objetivos descritivos, constituindo-se num Estudo de Caso. Foram utilizados como procedimentos e instrumentos de coleta, a Pesquisa Documental, a Observação Sistemática e o Questionário. Neste estudo de caso, foram adotadas a proposição teórica e o uso de dados qualitativos e quantitativos como estratégias analíticas, e a construção da explanação, como técnica analítica. A análise principal dos dados foi a partir da construção da explanação com triangulação dos dados. Os resultados dessa investigação associados às teorias utilizadas indicaram a presença de características relacionadas ao conhecimento sobre inovação tecnológica no IFBA, tal como o conceito de inovação, diferenciando-o de invenção. Dentre as características percebidas de uma inovação tecnológica, a compatibilidade, experimentação, demonstração de resultado, vantagem relativa e complexidade ou facilidade de uso foram apontadas com o maior grau de importância. Ainda segundo os resultados obtidos, os gestores, servidores ocupantes das pró-reitorias e diretorias sistêmicas do IFBA, considerados nesta tese como sujeitos de pesquisa, se veem como indivíduos solucionadores e previsores de problemas, possuindo os estilos hierárquico, integrativo, comportamental e conceitual de tomada de decisão. Destaca-se ainda que dentre estes sujeitos, o reitor e os representantes das pró-reitoria institucional, pesquisa e inovação e administrativa, bem como da diretoria de gestão da tecnologia da informação foram identificados como atores que podem influenciar a adoção de inovações tecnológicas no IFBA. Analisando como estes estilos podem influenciar nesta adoção, cumprindo o objetivo geral desta pesquisa, observou-se que os gestores com estes estilos de decisão são mais suscetíveis à adoção de inovação tecnológica uma vez que, dentre outras características, aceitam o risco e tomam decisões que ajudam à organização a lidar com as incertezas, destacando-se como gestores abertos, comunicativos e que procuram entender os impactos de suas decisões. / Abstract This research focuses on the influence of the decision-making styles in decision making and adoption of technological innovations at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Bahia (IFBA). The thesis is based mainly on the innovation diffusion theory and the theory of decisions. It is a predominantly qualitative approach to research, with descriptive goals, becoming a Case Study. They were used as procedures and collection tools, Documentary Research, the Systematic Observation and Questionnaire. In this case study, we adopted the theoretical proposition and the use of qualitative and quantitative data and analytical strategies, and the construction of the explanation, as an analytical technique. The primary analysis was based on the construction of explanation with triangulation of data. The results of this research related to the theories used indicated the presence of characteristics related with knowledge on technological innovation in the IFBA, such as the concept of innovation, differentiating it from invention. Among the perceived characteristics of a technological innovation, compatibility, trial, financial performance, relative advantage and complexity or ease of use were identified with the highest degree of importance. Also according to the results obtained, managers, occupants servers of pro-rectories and systemic directors of the IFBA, considered this thesis as a research subject, see themselves as problem individuals and forecasters problems, possessing the hierarchical styles, integrative, behavioral and conceptual of decision taking. Note also that among these subjects, the rector and representatives of institutional pro-rector, research and innovation and administrative and management board of information technology have been identified as actors who can influence the adoption of technological innovations in the IFBA. Analyzing how these styles can influence this adoption, fulfilling the objective of this research, it found that managers with these decision styles are more susceptible to the adoption of technological innovation since, among other characteristics, accept the risk and make decisions help the organization to deal with the uncertainties, especially as managers open, communicative and seeking to understand the impacts of their decisions.

[pt] O presente estudo tem o propósito de compreender os antecedentes da adoção de tecnologias de informação e comunicação (TIC), especificamente afetas a dispositivos móveis eletrônicos no contexto de sua aplicação na prestação de serviços públicos ao cidadão e o seu relacionamento com o Estado. Para tanto, a pesquisa buscou desenvolver um modelo inédito de adoção de inovações baseandose no Modelo de Difusão de Inovações (Rogers,2003), agregando a ele construtos adaptados ao contexto da relação do cidadão com governo brasileiro. A partir da teoria, são formuladas hipóteses que exploram quais fatores são capazes de impactar a atitude geral de adoção dos cidadãos em relação a tecnologias de governo móvel. O modelo proposto foi submetido a uma survey transversal, cuja amostra foi escolhida por conveniência, resultando em 666 registros válidos para análise. Os dados obtidos, analisados por meio da modelagem de equações estruturais, confirmam a maior parte das hipóteses formuladas e apresentam relações significativas entre os construtos vantagem relativa, compatibilidade, complexidade, conveniência, qualidade de serviço, confiança no governo e intenção de adoção na atitude geral de adoção sugerindo que o modelo proposto representa um avanço na compreensão dos fatores que influenciam a atitude geral de adoção do cidadão em relação a tecnologias de m-government. / [en] This study aims to understand the information and communication technologies (ICT) adoption background, specifically related to electronic mobile devices in the context of their application in the provision of public services to Brazilian citizens and their relationship with the State. To this end, the research sought to develop an unprecedented model of adopting innovations based on the Innovation Diffusion Model (Rogers, 2003), adding constructs adapted to the context of the citizen s relationship with the Brazilian government. Based on the theory, hypotheses that explore which factors are capable of impacting the general attitude of adoption were formulated. The proposed model, was subjected to a cross-sectional survey, resulting in 666 valid records from a convenience sample. The data obtained were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). They confirm most of the hypotheses formulated and present significant relationships between the constructs relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, convenience, quality of service, trust in the government and intention to adopt in the general attitude of adoption, suggesting that the proposed model represents an advance in understanding the factors that influence the Brazilian citizen general attitude of adoption related to m-government.