Showing papers on "Diffusion of innovations published in 1988"

Creation, Adoption and Diffusion of Innovations by Subsidiaries of Multinational Corporations

Abstract: This paper reports some of the findings of a multi-phased, and multi-method study on the organizational attributes that facilitate creation, adoption, and diffusion of innovations by subsidiaries of multinational companies. Comparison of results obtained through case research in nine companies, multiple-respondent questionnaire surveys in three companies, and a single-respondent survey in 66 North American and European multinationals reveal unambiguous and positive impacts of normative integration through organizational socialization and dense intra- and inter-unit communication on an MNC subsidiary's ability to contribute to the different innovation tasks. The findings are less consistent with regard to the effects of local resources and autonomy and it appears that the influences of these two attributes are strongly mediated by the levels of normative integration and organizational communication.

Cultural Constraints on Transfer of Technology Across Nations: Implications for Research in International and Comparative Management

Abstract: Cultural variations across nations and organizational culture-based differences between organizations that are involved in the transfer of various kinds of technologies are considered two major factors that influence the success of transfer. Relevant contributions from cross-cultural studies on management and organizations are integrated into the literature on organizational culture and diffusion of innovations, and a conceptual model is developed. Implications for research in international and comparative management are discussed.

To Innovate Or Not To Innovate: Incentives And Innovation In Hierarchies

Abstract: Hierarchical organizations often perform poorly in inducing the adoption of innovations. The authors examine a principal offering contracts to agents who make unobservable effort and adoption-of-innovation choices (yielding moral hazard); who occupy jobs of differing, unobserved productivities (yielding adverse selection); and who engage in a repeated relationship with the principal (causing a ratchet effect to arise). Increasing the rate of adoption of an innovation in such an organization causes the incentive costs of adoption to increase at an increasing rate. Relatively low rates of adoption may then be a response to the prohibitive incentive costs of higher adoption rates. Copyright 1990 by American Economic Association.(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

A Study of Diffusion of Innovations in Respect of the High Speed Train

Abstract: A transport innovation has been examined through canvassing opinion from a large sample of long distance travellers. The findings proved that there was no evidence to support adopter categories in respect of the high speed train. Respondents rated the attribute “relative advantage” as being extremely relevant, whilst “trialability”, “compatibility”, “observability” and “complexity” were not particularly relevant.

Technology collides with relative constancy: The pattern of adoption for a new medium

Abstract: This article examines adoption of television in light of McCombs’ principle of relative constancy and Rogers’ work on diffusion of innovations It reveals a normal pattern of reallocation of consumer resources from old media to the new one, but also a temporary diversion of resources from non‐media uses during early adoption

Judicial Reform and Rationalization: The Diffusion of Court Reform Policies Among the American States

Abstract: Explaining the diffusion of judicial reform policies among the American states is an elusive task. Are such policies simply part of the larger policy process revealed in the comparative state policy literature? Or b court reform a policy arena unto itself, responding to factors uniquely legal or professional in nature? Our inquiry begins with Max Weber's sociology of law from which we adopt his concept of rationalization as a schema of policy development. According to Weber, the “rationalization” of legal institutions would accompany the advancement of capitalism in modernizing nations. Thus, we might expect specific judicial reform policies expressly aimed at rationalizing the structure and process of state court systems to be closely associated with each other and with commonly accepted indicators of economic development among the states. As part of our investigation, we relate court reforms to broader policy innovations among the states, drawing on earlier “diffusion of innovations” research. Our data indicate a strong connection between judicial reform and more general patterns of innovation diffusion among the states, but provide only modest support for Weber's assertions about the rationalization of legal systems under advancing capitalism. Three of the selected reforms cluster together and are largely explainable by indicators of economic development. Two other reforms do not fit this pattern, and their “behavior” requires additional discussion and research. Thus, the diffusion of judicial reform policy is partly accounted for by factors found in explanations of general policy innovations across states, but other, as yet unidentified, factors apparently influence certain aspects of judicial reform. The connection between Max Weber's legal sociology and policy development among the American states might at first blush seem remote or tenuous. However, this article attempts to use Weber's insights into modern legal systems to (1) examine a specific area of state policy making–judicial reform–and (2) establish a connection between policy development in the court reform area and the larger literature on general policy innovation in the American states. This inquiry is inspired by the lack of theoretical integration apparent in the literature on court reform, on the one hand, and the absence of empirical analyses connecting court reform data with “diffusion of innovation” policy studies, on the other.