Showing papers on "Diffusion of innovations published in 1975"

A "desperation-reaction" model of medical diffusion.

Abstract: Knowledge about the adoption and diffusion of innovations is briefly reviewed. A model is then proposed to explain how certain innovations, intended to address dire medical problems, might diffuse in a manner not previously reported, with extensive diffusion occurring during what would be a period of small-scale experimentation and limited adoption in the conventional innovation-diffusion environment. The model is illustrated with findings from a case study of the diffusion of drug therapies for four types of leukemia. Possible implications of "desperation-reaction" diffusion are suggested.

Skills and the Diffusion of Innovations from Britain in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract: This paper stems from an initial interest in the relationships between science and technology in the eighteenth century. Hence its concern lies principally with the nature of technical innovation and the sources of technical change during the Industrial Revolution. Exploring the ways in which new technology is diffused can shed light on the nature of technical change itself, which is a complex amalgam of influences governing invention, innovation (the bringing of inventions into productive use) and the diffusion of new techniques. Taking as a topic the diffusion of technology, particularly in machine-making and engineering, between Britain and Europe in the late eighteenth century is thus not meant to be a peg on which to hang wide-ranging animadversions on the differing economic fortunes and pace of advance of Britain and Europe, or a discussion of why industrialization came first and fastest to Britain and lagged elsewhere: it is a much narrower enquiry into seeing what light the processes and difficulties of diffusing new technology cast upon technical change itself at this time.

Problems in early versus later adoption of manufacturing innovations.

Abstract: This research examined the experiences of early versus later adopters of new manufacturing equipment. The nature of the problems encountered during start up and operation and the factors affecting ...

Diffusion of Innovations under Imperfect Competition

Abstract: Publisher Summary This chapter presents diffusion of innovations under imperfect competition. Detailed empirical studies of North American and Western European economies have produced considerable evidence that the speed of diffusion of innovations and factor reallocation affects both the level and the growth rate of output per capita. They have also shown that economic fluctuations have an adverse effect on the rate of growth of output per unit of input, with the obvious implication that aggregate demand management may influence technical progress. Yet, generation after generation of neoclassical growth theories have invariably come to the conclusion that, given the rate of unemployment, the level of output per capita is determined solely by the share of investment in the national product, and its growth rate solely by exogenous changes in technology. The chapter explains that a modified version of the technical progress function fits aggregate data better than a production function. A microeconomic justification for the existence of such a function is also offered.