Diffusion of innovations in the Australian wine industry – A pilot study of conjoint analysis methods for pre-testing adoption of innovations

Many innovative products and services can be thought of as bundles of product attributes. Adoption may be determined by the consumer’s relative valuation of alternative bundles of the product attribute. Conjoint analysis is a sophisticated computer analysis method that allows us to assign utility values to the various attributes of an innovation and to redesign and optimise the mix of attributes in an innovation for particular target markets. The method also allows quantitative forecasting of initial market shares for alternative innovation concepts. This study reports on an exploratory pilot application of conjoint analysis to the adoption of innovative practices to control Botrytis in high risk grape growing regions in Australia.

The results for the high risk target group indicate that growers perceive spur pruning and chemical sprays as the most important management practices. However, a bundle of more holistic management practices that could reduce chemical sprays but include biological sprays with pruning, shoot thinning, bunch thinning and leaf thinning has the potential for an initial adoption by almost 30% of the surveyed growers. This forecast potential adoption rate would indicate that research and extension into these new management practices for Botrytis should be worth supporting.