Sustainable consumption obtains ever-increasing importance due to pressing social, environmental and economic issues. Extensive research has proposed the use of social norm communication as an effective means to encourage various kinds of pro-environmental behaviour, as well as sustainable consumption. However, although crucial to the development of effective social norm campaigns, tangible evidence for specific processes and conditions through which social norms foster sustainable consumption remains scarce.
In pervasive computing environments, mobile devices communicate via wireless links without requiring any fixed infrastructure. These devices must be able to discover and share services dynamically. In this paper, we propose a new service discovery middleware specifically designed for this kind of environments. This middleware is composed of a service discovery protocol, Pervasive Discovery Protocol (PDP), and a service description language, Generic Service Description Language (GSDL). PDP is a fully distributed protocol that merges characteristics of both pull and push solutions; it reduces power consumption of the most limited devices. GSDL is an XML based markup language that uses a hierarchical service description designed taking into account the specific requirements of pervasive environments.
From a consumers' perspective, Blockchain Technology (BCT) holds the potential to decrease transaction costs, improve privacy and redesign social interactions, which potentially leads to enhanced consumer power in transactional relationships. Nevertheless, only a few consumers use Blockchain-based applications consciously. By combining earlier research about BCT acceptance with different conceptualisations in the technology acceptance field (i.e. the Technology Acceptance Model and Rogers' Diffusion Theory), a Blockchain-specific model to explain the usage intention has been developed and validated by conducting an online survey among 157 German consumers. While most of them have recognised the technology's existence and confirmed its general relevance, many consumers do not know how to access and profit from BCT. Integrating the results of a Structural Equation Model and Pairwise Comparisons between typical attributes of Blockchain-based applications, specific beliefs about BCT usage are found to have a remarkable impact on consumers' acceptance. Based on the results, strategies to promote the acceptance of BCT among consumers are discussed from a marketer's, developer's and researcher's point of view.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.