Sustainable Innovation and Creative Behavior: the Mediating Effect of Technology Application from Early Adopters

Abstract

Innovation adoption and technology application models have revolutionized the hospitality and food sectors. Innovation is very important to the sustainable development of enterprises. However, current knowledge on whether and how sustainable innovation and innovation adoption can be understood from the perspective of technology application behavior has not been examined empirically. Based on decision-making levels derived from the attitude-implementation-confirmation (A-I-C) framework and following rule conditions on front- and back-of-house processes, the aim of this study is to provide practical recommendations for the establishment of a pattern of green innovation action that influences the implementation of innovation among early adopters in the restaurant industry. Using 499 questionnaire responses and diverse statistical methods, we verify that the effect of innovation adoption is significant and positive on sustainable innovation, and the effects of innovation adoption and sustainability are both significant and positive on technology application and behavior, respectively. Moreover, the effects of technology application are significant and positive on behavior and mediate the link between innovation adoption and behavior. Finally, technology application is modestly moderated by green resource motivation techniques (GrRMT) to influence behavior. The empirical results proved that innovation adoption, sustainable innovation, technology application and GrRMT improve the mechanism of creative behavior in the food/hospitality sector.