Du Publishes Research on Political Ideology and Smart Product Adoption

Shuili Du, professor of marketing, recently published new research in the Journal of Business Research titled “Consumer Adoption of Community-Focused Smart Products: The Moderating Role of Political Ideology.”

The study explores how political ideology influences consumer reactions to smart products that include community-sharing features. Many technologies — such as navigation apps, smart doorbells, and fitness trackers — rely on users sharing information to generate benefits for a broader network.

Across a survey of real users of products like Alexa and Waze and controlled experiments using a smart video doorbell, the researchers found that conservatives are more likely than liberals to adopt community-focused smart products compared with versions designed primarily for personal use.

The research also identifies data privacy attitudes as a key driver of these differences, suggesting that comfort with sharing data for collective benefits plays an important role in technology adoption.