To uncover social influence in personal networks on how to set up the heating system, heating behaviour and advice on saving energy, as well as the influence of a household’s peer group in terms of norms and status, a mixed-methods social network analysis was conducted in the City of Bottrop, Germany. In order to analyse a household’s embeddedness in social networks, interviews were conducted with around 23 households. Personal relations (friends, neighbours, relatives and peer groups) and relations to actors in the value chain of heating/space heating (i.e. craftspeople, manufacturers) were analysed. Results indicate that contacts with family and friends play a major role and that consulting agencies and consumer advice centres influence investment decisions on insulation, for example, to a great extent-due to the highly developed infrastructure of consulting in InnovationCity Ruhr-Bottrop. The consulting organisations established therein apparently function well and it shows that advice is also further diffused through ego-networks.
CITATION STYLE
Baedeker, C., Hasselkuß, M., & Buhl, J. (2016). Actor and network analysis. In Living Labs: Design and Assessment of Sustainable Living (pp. 191–203). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33527-8_15
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