Dynamic social interactions and adoption of new product variants .

摘要

An increase in environmental awareness has society looking for ways to decrease its ecological footprint. One way in which the population looks to do this is through the adoption of products with low environmental impact, so-called eco-products. This thesis presents additional mathematical tools for studying the adoption of new product variants, such as eco-products, by consumers. Through a previously developed extension of the characteristics model to a time dependent one, we develop a system of convection-diffusion equations to model two types of consumers, Innovators and Imitators, within our population. Innovators are those who purchase the product with no previous knowledge of it, and Imitators are those who purchase the new product based on the opinions of others. We extend the model to higher dimensions to include both horizontal and vertical product differentiation. Results from numerical simulations are analyzed with parameters coming from data collected in a recent survey. We conclude that the number of Innovators purchasing the new product variant is crucial in the products overall adoption. In closing, we discuss the direction of future work, as well as the limitations of models such as the one presented in this thesis.