How Do Risk Preferences Affect Golf Course Superintendents’ Adoption of Precision Irrigation Technologies? Implications from Prospect Theory

Abstract

Precision irrigation is a potential viable strategy for water use reductions on golf courses by making variable or site-specific irrigation applications. A group of US golf course superintendents were surveyed to examine whether and how superintendents’ risk preferences (attitudes) affect the adoption decisions of precision irrigation technologies on their golf courses. Under the prospect theory (PT) framework, a lottery experiment was used to elicit the measures of three risk attitudes, that is, risk curvature, probability distortion, and loss aversion. Using these three measures and other questions in the survey, we found that risk curvature has a significant positive effect on the precision irrigation technologies adoption on golf courses, while probability distortion affects the adoption negatively. Compared to the golf course in low precipitation areas, superintendents’ risk attitudes are more likely to affect the precision irrigation technologies adoption in the golf course in high precipitation areas. Additionally, risk curvature dominates the adoption decisions for newer technologies, while probability distortion dominates the older technologies adoption decisions. Our research enriches the literature on the decision-making behaviors of managers by considering how probability distortion, a factor typically ignored by other studies, affects technology adoption decisions and adds to the literature on examining the technology adoption behaviors under PT by focusing on golf course superintendents, a group that has not been studied.