The impact of motivation on farmers decision making on technology adoption with reference to Sri Lanka and the Czech Republic

Abstract

Technology adoption by farmers is an important factor in agricultural development in both developing and developed countries that has not been achieved over the past years. Therefore, adoption studies are important to identify beliefs and motives that affect decision making. Motivation is the stimuli/drive that influences farmers' behavior in technology adoption. Self Determination Theory is used to identify different types of motivation. Theory of Planned Behavior provides a structure to identify farmers' behavioral intention with respect to attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control. The main problem of the study was "why do farmers behave differently in technology adoption decisions? A questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data in the both countries. All questions were raised on five points Likert scale. Data analysis was done mainly from regression analysis using SPSS. According to the findings, it can be concluded that attitude is the main contributor to develop intention in Czech farmers. Specially extrinsic motivation has a great contribution in this regard. When Sri Lankan farmers are concern, the highest contribution to develop intention showed by the perceived behavioral control and followed by the attitude. Further, extrinsically motivated farmers can be influence by social pressure. The extrinsic and intrinsic motivations are equal in predicting behavior from intention in both countries. The results will contribute for the advancement of agricultural extension and policy approaches.