Ganguly, I (2008) Modeling alternatives and visualization of product adoption and usage in the residential construction industry. PhD thesis, University of Washington, USA.
Abstract
The residential housing materials market has unique characteristics resulting from the project based and fragmented nature of the industry. The overall goal of the research is to capture this uniqueness of the residential construction sector with regards to the innovation adoption and material usage. The dissertation is divided into three broad sections based on modeling techniques used and uses four different datasets from multiple sources for empirical estimation. The ‘repeat purchase diffusion model’ proposed in the first section of the research incorporates specific characteristics of diffusion of intermediary products. The model assumes that the product life cycle of an intermediary good is dependent on characteristics of the product and the time of introduction for later generation products. The proposed model fits the wood based panel usage data satisfactorily and provides practical demand forecasts and insights into the diffusion process of the housing materials. The second section of the dissertation analyzes the US decking materials survey data and results are presented in three papers. The decking material usage trends provide a clear indication that engineered decking materials (e. g. plastic and composite lumbers) are steadily gaining acceptance in most market segments. Using structural equation modeling framework, the study reveals that the ‘convenience’ aspects of using synthetic decking materials are playing a pivotal role in swaying the market away from the naturally durable species. A perceptual mapping based product positioning and demand analysis tool, developed for the study, revealed that composite decking materials enjoy a favorable positioning in the market as compared to its competitors. The research papers in the third section of the dissertation uses two different datasets. The first paper studies awareness and adoption of environmentally certified wood by residential homebuilders, using an ordinal probit (OP) approach. The second paper uses a multi-year cross-sectional data in analyzing the diffusion of innovative wall cavity insulation materials. This paper uses a zero-inflated ordinal probit (ZIOP) approach addressing the issue of high proportion of non-users in the market. The results reveal that in markets with low level of adoption, ZIOP helps better understand the role of various factors in adoption and usage decision.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Thesis advisor: | Eastin, I L |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | innovation; life cycle; market; markets; residential; visualization |
| Index terms: | research paper, market segment, structural equation modelling, demand analysis, survey, residential housing, mapping, product life cycle, visualization, dataset, housing, innovation adoption, composite, low level, plastic, life cycle, wood, estimation, residential construction, modelling, markets, dissertation, insulation, intermediary |
| Subjects: | design practice, traditional and composite building materials, construction integration, statistical analysis, data management, measurement and scaling, value management, data collection methods, business, financial and cost management, building materials, spatial and geospatial analysis, market analysis, materials science, innovation studies, construction type, research dissemination and communication, economic analysis, analytical methods |
| Topics: | Digital Applications, Design Practice, Information Management, Construction Materials, Research Practice, Business Strategy, Cost Management, Construction Technology, Engineering Principles, Project Management |
| Descriptive scope: | 4 PCEA |
N.B. Descriptive scope is a count of how many of the five facets of empirical research are indicated by the words used in title, abstract and keywords. It is not intended as a judgement on the research; merely a count of the kind of word we would expect to indicate Phenomenon, Concepts, Theoretical framing, Empirical techniques, Analytical techniques. If all five are present, then a code of “5 PCTEA” will indicate this. If you feel the coding for this record is questionable, we welcome discussion around the terms we matched or the way we categorized them. The facet you would expect may not be coded, or a facet may be coded inappropriately. This can also bear on a larger question, of which facets should be treated as defining in construction management research. Please get in touch, and we will look at it. More details here