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.

Technology and the Global Economy

Abstract: Since at least the eighteenth century, much of the world has experienced ongoing gains in the standard of living, a process that Simon Kuznets labeled "Modern Economic Growth." Economists have long sought to understand the forces behind this phenomenon. Accumulation of physical capital provided a simple and natural explanation. But Robert Solow's fundamental work in the late 1950s showed that capital accumulation could account for less than half of the growth in U.S. income per capita. Solow suggested that ongoing improvements in technology might tell the rest of the story. While subsequent work refined Solow's analysis, it did little to upset the basic conclusion that capital accumulation provides a very incomplete explanation for why countries grow. While interest in growth waned in the 1970s, the last decade and a half has seen a resurgence of research on why incomes rise over time, and why some countries are richer than others. There are now a number of elegant theories of how technological progress drives growth. But in turning the spotlight to technology rather than to investment, Solow made the job of quantifying the sources of growth, and assessing how policies affect growth, much harder. At the heart of the problem is measurement. We have imperfect, but usable, ways to measure resources diverted from other uses toward investment in capital. We can also gauge (much more roughly) how much capital is on hand. Such measures give us some handle on capital's contribution to growth over time and to differences in incomes across countries. But technology presents the empirical economist with a much more elusive concept. We do not observe people coming up with new ideas, and we cannot systematically trace how these ideas shape the process of production over time and space. A number of basic questions, however, hinge on understanding how innovations occur, and how these innovations raise income levels around the world. For example: Do countries rely, for the most part, on their own innovations, or are the gains from innovation largely shared? Where does most innovation occur, and where are these innovations most rapidly put into practice? To the extent that the benefits of innovation seep across borders, do these gains spread through the exchange of products embodying these innovations, or through the diffusion of the ideas themselves? The answers to these questions are of intrinsic interest, but they are also at the heart of any evaluation of the myriad government policies that affect innovation. For instance: What are the benefits and costs of tougher patent protection, and how are they shared across countries? Does a country recover the costs of giving research expenditures favorable tax treatment, or are the benefits largely dissipated through the diffusion of innovations abroad? What are the gains from coordinating research policies internationally? To what extent does greater openness spread the benefits of technical progress? Sam Kortum and I are engaged in a research project that attempts to shed light on these issues. Our framework builds on recent advances in growth theory and trade theory. We take this theoretical framework to a number of sources of data. We look not only at productivity across countries and over time; we also use data on research effort, patenting, education, and bilateral trade. Our research so far has pursued four broad sets of issues: 1) quantifying the contributions of innovation and diffusion to world growth, 2) explaining differences in research effort across countries, 3) analyzing the effects of national technology policies in an international context, and 4) assessing the role of trade in disseminating the benefits of technological advances between countries. I discuss our results on each category, and then turn to work-in-progress. World Growth and the International Diffusion of Technology In a series of papers, Kortum and I have sought to trace productivity improvements in different countries to the countries that generated the innovations behind those improvements. …

Exploring UK lean diffusion in the period 1988 to 2010

Abstract: Lean entered management lexicon over two decades ago as a term to describe the highly successful Toyota Production System. Since then the term has evolved and is now generally used to describe a business process improvement methodology. Over time, Lean has inspired a movement. It provides the rationale for considerable work and activity that is taking place within many diverse organisations today. The purpose of this study was to explore that movement and spread of Lean over time. A review of the literature showed that research on Lean relies heavily on case studies where the unit of analysis is the organisation and that little research focused on the spread or diffusion of Lean into a population of organisations. The review also identified two bodies of work particularly well-placed to provide theoretical underpinning for the study: the work on the diffusion of innovations and, the work on the management of fashions and fads. The research was designed to contribute to knowledge in all three areas of literature. The research design and methodology included two main methods of data collection: a database of publications on Lean was developed in order to enable patterns of Lean discourse to be traced over time in-depth interviews were conducted in order to gather expert judgement on the nature of UK Lean diffusion. The findings indicate that Lean diffusion has taken place in the UK in the period under inquiry. Lean originated in manufacturing, it later diffused in the service sector and more recently into the public sector. The findings establish that explanations of Lean diffusion in the extant Lean literature, which are generally based on a rational choice perspective, represent an overly simplistic view of diffusion. Lean diffusion has occurred as a result of the interaction of multiple factors. Some factors are generic to other managerial innovations, others are specific to Lean. Some factors were more important to early Lean diffusion and are less so to later Lean diffusion (and vice-versa). In this exploratory study, the main influencing factors are brought together in a conceptual framework for Lean diffusion. As Lean penetrates into environments such as public services, the framework offers potential for further empirical testing.

It governance: an architectural framework based on consolidated best practices

Abstract: Due to the continual increase of the significance of information technology (IT), the need to provide governance in the deployment, use and management of the artefacts is simultaneously essential. However, even though different frameworks have been employed, the implementation of IT governance has never been easy for many organisations. This is attributed to many factors, such as people, process and technological artefacts. IT governance frameworks differ in one area or another, making their selection challenging for organisations. As a result, some organisations have more than one IT governance framework. This, on one hand, sometimes results in duplication of the frameworks’ functionalities, thereby adding to the environment complexity. On another hand, some IT governance frameworks are short of functions in regard to the organisation’s objectives. These challenges are attributed to the lack of an architectural framework, of consolidated best practices.

Technology and the Economy: The Case of Falling Productivity Growth in the 1970s

Abstract: The concept of transfer of technology, or of diffusion of innovations, implies a distinction between the creation of new know-how and its spread through the economy. The first may be described as the activity on the ‘technological frontier’. This is usually identified with the innovators and could be defined as ‘best practice’ or latest know-how. The meaning of diffusion is self-explanatory. For some economists the distinction is connected with the idea that the technological frontier is created autonomously; the innovations enter the economy from outside whereas the diffusion is subject to economic forces and considerations (Maddision, 1979; Gomulka, 1979).