Service Adoption in The Agricultural Sector - A case study about the role of product-service offerings for Swedish cattle farmers
Abstract
Even in traditional sectors such as the agricultural sector, digitalization has significantly
impacted operations. Because of the sector’s fundamental role in society, understanding this
digital evolvement to support further development is of essence on a grand societal level.
Although an increase in the use of product-service offerings is prevalent in the sector, the
uncertainties regarding farmers’ willingness to adopt service-focused offerings constitutes a
gray area in practice and theory. Furthermore, the servitization literature lacks research
pertaining to the users’ perspectives and the factors influencing servitization, which opens for
further contributions to this research domain.
Therefore, this study aims to investigate servitization of IoT products and what impact
these services will have on farmers as well as service providers within the agricultural sector.
The study applies a case study design, including semi structured interviews with Swedish
farmers as well as secondary data from the case company and from other service providers
within the sector.
It was found that multiple groups of factors influence user adoption of servitized IoT
offerings within the sector: First, factors concerning the impact on working conditions, animal
welfare and financial position. Second, farmer’s general attitude and mindset towards
technological development, provider survivability and trust in technology, mediates adoption.
Third, there are factors relating to the intrinsic characteristics of a product-service offering.
Fourth, extrinsic factors such as actions from the service provider have the possibility to
influence the user adoption of a service. Lastly, various contextual factors, such as access to
service connection and government policies and regulations moderates adoption. In relation to
these factors, the paper provides a conceptual framework regarding their interdependencies.
Additionally, using a business model innovation perspective, suggestions for how a servitizing
firm can consider these factors and their interdependencies are presented.
Degree
Master 2-years
Collections
View/ Open
Date
2023-07-19Author
Larsson, Emma
Larsson, John
Keywords
Agriculture
Cattle farmers
Business model change
Digital servitization
Product-service-software systems
Product-service adoption
Value co-creation
Servitization
Series/Report no.
Master Degree Project 2023:154
Language
eng