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Diffusion of innovations

About: Diffusion of innovations is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2139 publications have been published within this topic receiving 191397 citations. The topic is also known as: diffusion of innovation & diffusion of innovations theory.


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Journal Article
TL;DR: Four different theoretical models for explaining the diffusion of innovation were compared for 13 energy-related innovations--the Theory of Planned Behavior, the S-curve for Diffusion of Innovations, the power law distribution, and the cusp catastrophe.
Abstract: Four different theoretical models for explaining the diffusion of innovation were compared for 13 energy-related innovations--the Theory of Planned Behavior, the S-curve for Diffusion of Innovations, the power law distribution, and the cusp catastrophe. The substantive concern was to explore the roles of facilitative and obstructive factors in diffusing industrial and commercial innovations. Participants were 102 industrial plant and facilities managers from sites that were among the top users of electrical energy and natural gas in the United States. They completed a survey that contained measurements of positive attitudes toward innovation, organizational resistance to innovation, and the extent to which they had investigated or adopted each of the target innovations. Seven of the 13 innovations exhibited strong cusp catastrophe models (via nonlinear regression, average R2 = .91) compared to linear alternative models (average R2 = .31) for those innovations; the S-curve for diffusion was regarded as a simplified version of the cusp. One innovation was characterized best by a power law distribution (R2 = .94), and the remaining five were characterized best by a linear model that was based on the Theory of Planned Behavior (R2 = .41). Different underlying dynamics for the various innovations were implied by these results.

6 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This work proposes and test a voluntary behavioral intention formation model for the adoption of one type of new security technology: portable radiation detectors, and offers recommendations on effective communication about new security technologies to motivate public adoption and enhance national safety.
Abstract: After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. government initiated several national security technology adoption programs. The American public, however, has been skeptical about these initiatives and adoption of national security technologies has been mandated, rather than voluntary. We propose and test a voluntary behavioral intention formation model for the adoption of one type of new security technology: portable radiation detectors. Portable radiation detectors are an efficient way of detecting radiological and nuclear threats and could potentially prevent loss of life and damage to individuals’ health. However, their functioning requires that a critical mass of individuals use them on a daily basis. We combine the explanatory advantages of diffusion of innovation with the predictive power of two volitional behavior frameworks: the theory of reasoned action and the health belief model. A large sample survey (N = 1,482) investigated the influence of factors identified in previous diffusion of innovation research on portable radiation detector adoption intention. Results indicated that nonfinancial incentives, as opposed to financial incentives, should be emphasized in persuasive communications aimed at fostering adoption. The research provides a new integration of diffusion of innovation elements with determinants of volitional behavior from persuasion literature, and offers recommendations on effective communication about new security technologies to motivate public adoption and enhance national safety.

6 citations

Book ChapterDOI
14 Jun 2007
TL;DR: A conceptual 3-D model of Rogers’ innovation-decision process is presented and a series of propositions are suggested to stimulate future research efforts.
Abstract: This paper examines the implications for research on the diffusion of innovations (DOI) arising from a growing body of literature in two related fields. The first area concerns the debate on the role of regional and national systems of innovation in the innovation process. The second area deals with the argument that enterprises must move from a “closed innovation” to an “open innovation” paradigm. The review is presented in the context of a case study being undertaken in a subsidiary of American Power Conversion (APC) located in the West of Ireland. Based on the preliminary stages of our work, we present a conceptual 3-D model of Rogers’ innovation-decision process and suggest a series of propositions to stimulate future research efforts.

6 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: In this article, a review of the literature regarding the political context of public sector innovation and the literature on differences among innovations that would affect political receptivity to the new approach is presented.
Abstract: INTRODUCTION For the past three decades, students of public administration have considered the development of innovations within organizations an important topic in organizational theory (e.g., Wilson, 1966; Downs, 1967; Rowe and Boise, 1974; Kingdon, 1984; Altshuler and Zegans, 1990).(1) Paralleling this interest, students of comparative state politics and policy have considered the diffusion of innovations a central element in the process of state policy formulation and agenda setting (e.g., Walker, 1969; Gray, 1973; Savage, 1985a).(2) Both bodies of literature have resulted in important and theoretically rich speculations on the propensity of certain types of organizations to engage in innovative activities and the flow of new ideas within the American federal system. However, students of administration have typically ignored the political context within which public sector innovations emerge and students of interstate policy diffusion have generally treated "innovations" as if all new approaches were essentially similar in magnitude. The analysis to follow attempts to merge these literatures by focusing on the political environment surrounding successful state government innovators in the late 1980s. The central premise of the research in that successfully implementing a public sector innovation is fundamentally a political process. While one might expect that new ideas are continually floating around state governments as they attempt to tackle increasingly complex policy problems, only those ideas that capture the attention of relevant decision-makers will eventually become an innovation. The analysis begins with a brief review of the literature regarding the political context of public sector innovation and the literature on differences among innovations that would affect political receptivity to the new approach. The research design, data gathering procedure, and operationalization of different types of innovation are then presented. Analysis is conducted assessing if different types of innovation trigger differential involvement of political actors. The analysis concludes with recommendations for future research in the area of innovation development and execution. THEORETICAL ORIENTATION AND HYPOTHESES Public officials operate in an environment deliberately established (division of labor, chain of command, administrative procedure regulations, overhead political control) to prevent their agencies from embarking on new ideas without the concurrence of other relevant actors within the decision-making environment. Previous work on the decision environment of state agencies (Wright, 1978; Brudney and Hebert, 1987; Miller, 1987) has identified a number of actors involved in agency decision-making and has found that external actor influence varies systematically, depending upon characteristics of the state, the policy responsibilities of the agency, and structural features of the agency in question. The environmental actors identified in this literature are governors, legislators, interest groups, clients, other agencies, federal officials, and professional associations. By their very nature, public sector innovations create turbulence within organizations and policy communities leading to the potential of resource and power relationship changes. However, not all innovations are the same and their differences should, theoretically, affect how they are received by external actors. In Rowe and Boise's (1974) review of innovation theory, they offer a category scheme drawn from Wilson (1966) and Knight (1967) premised on the "impact" of the innovation. Impact is defined on two dimensions: organizational impact, "the amount of organizational and/or societal space, i.e., activities and interactions, affected by an innovation;" and social impact, "the degree of radicalness, i.e., extent of change in activities and interaction, of an innovation" (Ibid., 289). From Wilson (1966) the social scope of the innovation refers to how fundamentally the innovation affects the organization's task environment. …

6 citations

Book ChapterDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a system composed of a mass social infrastructure, a competitive infrastructure, and a technical infrastructure to enable the diffusion of an innovation in a way that no single marketer could do alone.
Abstract: Marketers have traditionally studied diffusion of innovation with a primary focus on the individual consumer as a unit of analysis, the major types of findings being characteristics of adopter categories and opinion leadership. We propose that this perspective is not adequate from a macromarketing perspective, in which the goals are to set public policy for societal good or to create an environment which enables the diffusion of an innovation in a way that no single marketer could do alone. In setting public policy which can enable (or inhibit) diffusion of innovation for societal good, a system composed of a mass social infrastructure, a competitive infrastructure, and a technical infrastructure should be considered.

6 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
202310
202236
202172
202078
201977
201898