Adopting green energy initiatives is deemed significant in reducing the carbon footprint of the hotel industry. In general, energy-efficient and renewable energy technologies offer wide applications in the hotel industry. The adoption of these technologies improves energy performance and reduces dependence on fossil fuels. Hotel organizational commitment towards sustainability is highly inconsistent across the industry. Essentially, this industry represents a continuum of adopters; some hotels are leaders who proactively adopt innovative and state-of- the-art technologies, while others adopt only basic practices, such as reusing towels. There exist several challenges to shifting hotel organizations toward implementing green energy measures. Sharing best practices and learned lessons is essential to convince less committed hotel organizations to take action. Along with sharing information, it is important to identify similarities and differences in decision-making on green energy measures in both committed and less committed hotels. This study explores factors affecting decision-making on green energy measures in the hotel industry. In particular, it examines the business case for these measures and identifies challenges that prevent hotel managers from taking action. The study findings suggest that similarities and differences among best practice and other hotels are related to the approaches taken in decision-making by hotel managers in the adoption of green energy measures in terms of short/long term energy planning, resource intensity and views about sustainability. The study further highlights success factors contributing to increased use of green energy measures and areas that need to be addressed in order to encourage hotel managers to adopt green energy measures.

This study explores how smart home users act to keep their smart products safe. The sample was identified in the literature as early adopters. These were studied through a qualitative case study with semi-structured interviews. Data were then analysed with a thematic analysis, which resulted in four themes: Lack of concern, In the hands of the manufacturer, Safety outside the product and Safety measures. The informants had different reasons and motivations for their common lack of concern, their experience of being able to influence product security the measures they could evoke and the measures they actually took. The informants' lack of concern is linked to the theory of the impact of worryon actionand risk perception. The informants' problems in influencing security are supported by other literature. Their hypothetical measures are mainly outside the product. The actions they actually perform on the product are limited to basic security measures such as passwords, etc. Users find it difficult to influence the security of their products, unsafe products can easily fall victim to malicious individuals and influence others in their environment. / Denna studie undersöker hur användare av smarta hem kan agera för att hålla sina smarta produkter säkra.Urvalet identifierades i litteratur som early adopters. Dessa studerades genom en kvalitativ fallstudie med semistrukturerade intervjuer. Data analyserades sedan med en tematisk analys, vilket resulterade i fyra teman: Avsaknad av oro, I händerna på tillverkaren, Säkerhet utanför produkten och Säkerhetsåtgärder. Informanterna hade olika anledningar och motivationer till sin gemensamma avsaknad av oro, deras upplevelse av att kunna påverka produkters säkerhet, de åtgärder som de kunde frammana och de åtgärder som de faktiskt gjorde. Informanternas avsaknad av oro länkas till teori om oros påverkan på agerande och upplevd risk. Informanternas problematik att påverka säkerheten stöds av annan litteratur. Deras hypotetiska åtgärder ligger i huvudsak utanför produkten. Det agerande de faktiskt utför på sina produkter är begränsat till grundläggande säkerhetsåtgärder som lösenord etc. Användarna har svårt att påverka säkerheten hos sina produkter, osäkra produkter kan enkelt falla offer för illvilliga individer och påverka andra i sin omgivning.

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) could reduce CO2 emissions from the transport sector but their limited electric driving range diminishes their utility to users. The effect of the limited driving range can be reduced in multi-car households where users could choose between a BEV and a conventional car for long-distance travel. However, to what extent the driving patterns of different cars in a multi-car household’s suit the characteristics of a BEV needs further analysis. In this paper we analyse the probability of daily driving above a fixed threshold for conventional cars in current Swedish and German car driving data. We find second cars in multi-car households to require less adaptation and to be better suited for BEV adoption compared to first cars in multi-car households as well as to cars in single-car households. Specifically, the share of second cars that could fulfil all their driving is 20 percentage points higher compared to first cars and cars from single-car households. This result is stable against variation of driving range and of the tolerated number of days requiring adaptation. Furthermore, the range needed to cover all driving needs for about 70% of the vehicles is only 220 km for second cars compared to 390 km for the average car. We can further confirm that second cars have higher market viability from a total cost of ownership perspective. Here, the second cars achieve a 10 percentage points higher market share compared to first cars, and to cars in single-car households for Swedish economic conditions, while for Germany the corresponding figure is 2 percentage points. Our results are important for understanding the market viability of current and near-future BEVs.

Recently, it has been admitted by many researchers that students today are "digital natives" who already utilize several different technologies everyday with different purposes. Furthermore, while there is a plethora of research about learners' perceptions in language pedagogy, there is a paucity of information and research that could move beyond generic perception studies especially regarding new technologies. Accordingly, educators are still concerned not only with how to encourage EFL learners to adopt emerging technologies that could be invaluable in their language learning processes, but also with how to keep students interested in what they are learning. Thus, an understanding beyond students' perceptions with a purposive focus on their approach to technology by also exploring factors that have an influence on their adoption of emerging technologies is the key to knowing how to motivate students to integrate new technologies, and how to keep students interested in the learning process. Therefore, the purpose of this study was three-fold: to identify language learners' approaches to technologies; to examine their attitude toward emerging technologies with a focus on their familiarity, actual use, intentions and perceptions; and finally to analyze the factors and relationships among these factors that best predict language learners' intentions and decisions to use emerging technologies. The study specifically aimed to explore the following emerging technologies: (a) social networking, (b) mobile learning, and (c) digital games as major emerging technologies of today with also a focus on other emerging technologies: (a) augmented reality, (b) wearable technologies, (c) virtual assistants, (d) massive online open courses, (e) 3D printing and (f) online language learning platforms. This mixed methods study benefitted from multiple disciplines, and presented several different perspectives to achieve its aim. The data were obtained through a survey, open-ended questions, and semi-structured interviews. The quantitative data were analyzed through descriptive and inferential statistics. In addition, structural equation modeling was utilized and path analysis was employed to draw on two complementary frameworks: innovation diffusion theory (Rogers, 2003), especially its application in technology adopter categories (TACI) (Dugas, 2005), and the decomposed theory of planned behavior (DTPB) (Taylor & Todd, 1995), which was adapted for this research. The qualitative data was analyzed through thematic content analysis, and used to triangulate and affirm what the quantitative data was showing. The findings indicated that technology adopter categories were normally distributed among EFL learners at a public and a private university in Turkey. Although most EFL learners were quite familiar and confident with major emerging technologies, they were not very familiar with minor emerging technologies. As for an awareness of the benefits of all listed emerging technologies, the study revealed that EFL learners' awareness is quite high; however, it was also found that participants' intention to use these emerging technologies and their actual use were very low. Finally, the results showed that the adapted DTPB was useful in explaining much of the variance in the intention to integrate technology into language learning processes by EFL learners, and attitude was the most important predictor and factor of behavioral intention. Given these findings, this research aims to contribute to the literature in innovation diffusion, user adoption and language pedagogy by offering several theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical implications and directions for future research and applications.

Dans cette thèse nous nous intéressons aux décisions des collectivités territoriales, en tant qu'organisations publiques, concernant l'adoption des innovations responsables, dans un contexte de conscientisation des organisations publiques aux questions de la responsabilité sociale. En réalisant une étude comparative entre les collectivités françaises et roumaines nous proposons un modèle de processus de décisions des organisations publiques. Nous y présentons la décision comme une « confrontation » entre les valeurs des élus, dans leurs rôles de décideur de la collectivité, les différentes parties prenantes intervenant dans l'activité de celle-ci et le choix entre plusieurs alternatives qui se présentent aux élus. Par ailleurs, la prise de décision est un processus qui a comme point de départ la nécessité d'adopter les innovations responsables et comme résultat final la décision d'action ou de non-action. La décision se prend sous l'influence des parties prenantes lesquelles expliquent la présence des pressions isomorphiques. La réaction des élus face à ces influences nous a menée à identifier 3 catégories d'adopteurs : les premiers adopteurs, les adopteurs persuadés et les adopteurs réticents. Ces éléments nous ont permis de confirmer et d'enrichir le modèle issu de la partie théorique. / This PhD thesis presents the local communities decisions toward the adoption of responsible innovations, the local communities being seen as public organizations. This analysis is carried out in a context of awareness of public organization' social responsibility. We perform a comparative study between the French and the Romanian communities and we propose a decision-making process of the public organizations. The decision is seen as a « meeting » between the mayors values, as the community decision-makers, the different stakeholders, playing an important role in the community's activity, and the several options available to the mayors. Moreover, the decision-making represents an evolution from the need to adopt the responsible innovations to the final decision of action or non-action ; this decision-making is under the stakeholders influence which involves the isomorphic pressures. The way that the mayors react to these influences lead us to identify 3 categories of adopters : the first adopters, the persuaded adopters and the hesitant adopters. These elements allowed us to confirm and complete the model from the theoretical part.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:37:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 BiancaTR.pdf: 221009 bytes, checksum: 1221d932d6e83e0c6980f07204dda07f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-01-19 / Parental investment increases the offspring s survival, though it decreases the opportunities for the parents to invest in a future progeny. In a broad sense, this investment is directed to one s own descendant, but in some cases, such as in adoption, resources are directed to non-relatives even in the absence of fitness benefits. Once there are many factors involved in adoption, this study investigated adopters candidates, aiming to analyze aspects considered by them for adopting, based on the Evolutionary Psychology s perspective. We analyzed the judicial proceedings? files people who had been inlisted for adoption at the 2? Childhood and Adolescence Law Court, Natal-RN. The adopter s motivations were classified into biological or social reasons. A relationship between adopters? age and kind of motivation was found: requirements of young people were related to biological reasons while requirements of the old ones were related to social reasons. Fertility, mainly female requirer?s fertility, underlie this relationship, considering that women fertility is strongly influenced by age. The reasons to adopt were also related to the age of the desired child, once that people who wanted children older than 25 months alleged social reasons while those that wanted younger babies alleged biological reasons. There are lots of motives to adopt a child, but the phenomenon of adoption is broadly acknowledged by society as an act of love and the adoptive parents are often regarded as kind and generous people. It was observed, instead, that the reasons to adopt comes from the adopters themselves, related to the fulfillment of personal needs, such as increasing the family, carrying out mother/father role or having a company or someone to care form them in elderly age / O investimento que os pais direcionam ? prole aumenta a sua taxa de sobreviv?ncia ao mesmo tempo em que diminui as chances dos pais de investir em futuras proles. Em geral, o investimento ? direcionado ? pr?pria descend?ncia do indiv?duo, mas percebe-se que existe investimento parental mesmo quando n?o h? ganhos em termos de aptid?o, como por exemplo na ado??o, em que recursos s?o dirigidos a n?o aparentados. Considerando que a ado??o envolve v?rios fatores, foi nosso objetivo realizar um estudo com um enfoque nos futuros pais adotivos, buscando investigar os par?metros considerados para ado??o, utilizando como base te?rica a Psicologia Evolucionista. Para isto, analisou-se o arquivo de pessoas cadastradas para ado??o na 2? vara da Inf?ncia e Juventude da Comarca de Natal (RN). As motiva??es dos requerentes ? ado??o puderam ser classificadas em dois grandes grupos: biol?gicas e sociais. Encontrou-se uma rela??o entre o tipo de motiva??o e a idade dos requerentes, sendo o motivo biol?gico relacionado a faixas et?rias mais jovens dos requerentes e o social a faixas et?rias mais velhas. Um dos fatores que permearam esta rela??o foi a fertilidade, sobretudo das requerentes, uma vez que a fertilidade feminina ? fortemente influenciada pela idade. Tamb?m encontrou-se uma rela??o entre o tipo de motivo e a faixa et?ria da crian?a pretendida, em que pessoas que queriam adotar crian?as com mais de 25 meses apresentavam motivos sociais e as que queriam crian?as de 0 a 24 meses apresentavam motivos biol?gicos. As raz?es para adotar foram v?rias, mas esse fen?meno ? enfatizado na sociedade como um ato de amor, e costumeiramente o adotante visto como uma pessoa solid?ria e bondosa. Observou-se, no entanto, que as motiva??es para adotar partem da pr?pria pessoa, considerando a satisfa??o de necessidades pessoais, como exercer o papel materno, paterno ou ambos, ampliar a fam?lia ou ter uma companhia ou algu?m de quem receba cuidados na velhice

RESUMÉ The role of Social and Legal Authority providing protection of Children in the process of arranging adoptions This thesis deal with the The role of Social and Legal Authority providing protection of Children in the process of arranging adoptions. The Social and legal protection of children is one of the most important activity. The state cares about children without parents. The aim of adoption is acceptance of another person as their own. The thesis is divided into two parts and six chapters. The first part is devoted to institute of adoption. The Civil Code changed view of the adoption. Now the adoption isn't one of the types foster care of children, but the adoption is at the same level like biology relationship between parents and children. The first chapter describes historical development of adoption. The Second chapter describes the institute of adoption, for example sorts of law, main characteristics, type and conditions of adoption, consents with adoption, care before adoption and revocation of adoption. The second part describes process of arranging adoption. The third chapter describes social and legal protection of children. This chapter is devoted to term social and legal protection, historical development and authorities. The fourth chapter is the main of chapter, which is devoted to...

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To remain relevant, even the successful social networks need to evolve. Vertical Social Networks (VSN) are the response of this, satisfying people who are seeking more niched and personalized content. However, this is a highly competitive environment where taking advantage of the first mover advantages is crucial for the future success. This study concerns diffusion of innovations and segmentation according to the technology adoption lifecycle to investigate how a VSN can reach user growth by understanding their current users better. We have built this study upon an explorative case study of a case company operating in the VSN landscape providing their users with an application. Building on extensive literature research, theory, surveys and conducting interviews, differences in user characteristics were identified. Theoretical and empirical evidence was further analyzed based on user behavior and level of satisfaction. Our recommendations suggest that considerations for different phases of the diffusion journey has to be made by targeting the appropriate users as this is vital for satisfying the existing users, and for reaching new ones. / För att bibehålla relevans, måste även de mest framgångsrika sociala nätverken utvecklas. Vertikala Sociala Nätverk (VSN) är svaret på detta, genom att tillfredsställa människor som söker mer nischade och personifierat innehåll. Detta landskap är dock präglat av hög konkurrens där vikten av att vara först på marknaden är avgörande för framtida framgång. Denna studie belyser Innovationsspridning och segmentering enligt Technology Adoption Lifecycle för att undersöka hur ett VSN kan nå användartillväxt genom att förstå sina nuvarande användare bättre. Vi har genomfört en undersökande fallstudie av ett företag inom VSN branschen som bistår sina användare med en applikation. Baserat på tidigare forskning, teori, enkäter och intervjuer identifierades olikheter i karaktärsdrag hos deras användare. Teoretiska och empiriska bevis beträffande olikheter i karaktärsdrag analyserades och diskuterades vidare baserat på användarbeteende och nivå av tillfredsställelse. De föreslagna rekommendationerna innefattar att ett övervägande för olika faser av diffusionsresan måste göras för att tilltala lämpliga målgrupper, då detta är avgörande för att tillfredsställa befintliga användare, och för att nå nya.