Age Matters: How Generational Decision-Making Cohorts Affect Disruptive Technology New Product Development

Yorgos Marinakis, Steven Walsh*, Rainer Harms

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)
463 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT), a worldwide network of interconnected objects uniquely addressable, based on standard communication protocols, has become a disruptive technology, even for decision-makers who develop products based on them. It was reported in 2015 and 2018 that decision-makers associated with the Fortune 1000 firms stated that they were hesitant to use IoT-based value propositions, primarily due to privacy and security concerns. In this article, we view decision-maker willingness to develop IoT-based products through the lens of the social construction of technology (SCOT) theory. We utilize SCOT-based generational cohorts of firm decision-makers to investigate whether generational cohorts of decision-makers are relevant in a firm's decision to launch an IoT value proposition. We argue that it is pertinent to consider age-based generations as stakeholders for IoT, which currently constitutes a gap in the literature on IoT and SCOT. We employ an exploratory survey analysis that supports the relevance of generational decision-making cohorts. We focus on age to the exclusion of other potential decision-maker cohort possibilities and discuss this as a limitation in our conclusion.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)274 - 282
Number of pages9
JournalIEEE Transactions on Engineering Management
Volume71
Early online date2 Nov 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Keywords

  • Bicycles
  • Cyber privacy
  • Cyber risk
  • Cybersecurity
  • Decision making
  • Internet of Things (IoT)
  • New product development (NPD)
  • Privacy
  • Safety
  • Social Construction of Technology (SCOT)
  • Social groups
  • Stakeholders
  • Technology entrepreneurship
  • Technology policy
  • 22/1 OA procedure

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Age Matters: How Generational Decision-Making Cohorts Affect Disruptive Technology New Product Development'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this