Diffusion Of Technical Innovations Research Articles

An institutional taxonomy of adoption of innovation in the classic professions

The study of technical innovation in Professional Services has attracted growing interest among scholars, who have sought to analyze the process of organizational change and service transformation. However, very little attention has been devoted to understanding the process of adoption and diffusion of technical innovation in professional sectors. In this paper, we suggest that the relevance and peculiarity of institutional dynamics at play in the professional sectors warrant a specific focus aimed at laying out how they affect adoption and diffusion of technical innovation.In particular, we highlight that cultural-cognitive and normative pillars, embedded in the classic or regulated professions, may significantly insulate professionals from efficient-choice lenses and act as either drivers or barriers of adoption of technical innovations depending on the nature of the technology in question. Our proposed hypothesis is that institutional mechanisms act as drivers for the adoption of trajectorial innovations i.e. technologies that improve existing sets of practices and routines, and as barriers for paradigmatic innovations i.e. technologies that substantively alter existing practices and/or strip away certain tasks from the hands of professionals.Finally, we illustrate the role that social norms play as transmission mechanism of cultural-cognitive and normative pressures.

Cultivating Invisible Impact with Deep Technology and Creative Destruction

The term "Deep Tech" is prevalent in industry but ill-defined. In this extended letter, we define Deep Tech (technology that is difficult to develop today, with the potential to become a pervasive and easy-to-implement basic need in the future) and consider its role in evolving businesses. We suggest how organizations can position themselves to take advantage of a coming wave of innovation, with emphasis placed on Creative Destruction's role (cannibalizing product lines) in creating sustaining enterprises. Understanding the diffusion of technical innovation from hard-to-implement exciter to commodity basic need will encourage leaders to rethink their current offerings to play in a future-thinking space setting these companies apart from the competition. We provide examples drawn from successful organizations.

An analysis of the wind power development factors by Generalized Bass Model: A case study of China's eight bases

China has developed eight bases to boost the large-scale exploitation of wind power, thereby achieving great success in recent years. In this study, we propose an adjusted technical innovation diffusion model to explore the optimal development paths for the eight bases until 2030. Considering environmental differences, the model mainly takes the following factors into account: economic factors, grid construction, coordination of departments, power system failure and technology diffusion. In addition, we classify the bases into four groups according to their geographical locations and economic development to investigate the common characteristics affecting their development. The empirical analysis indicates that all eight bases may achieve their development goals by 2020, but not all may reach their 2030 goals under most circumstances. The effect of incentive policies varies significantly among regions due to differences in available resources and economic development. Grid availability act as the biggest obstacle to wind power development in regions with abundant resources and underdeveloped economies, whereas a subsidy is the key driver of wind power diffusion in developed regions.

Acceptance and Resistance of New Digital Technologies in Medicine: Qualitative Study.

BackgroundThis study discusses the acceptance of new medical technologies in health care settings and resistance to these technologies from hospitals, doctors’ surgical centers, electronic health (eHealth) centers, and related institutions. We suggest a novel method of identifying factors that influence the acceptance of, and resistance to, new technologies by medical staff and patients.ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to determine and evaluate the factors that influence acceptance and resistance to achieve a successful implementation of new technologies.MethodsThe target group was patients residing in Brandenburg and major stakeholders in the local health care structure, for instance, medical institutions and medical professionals. The process relies on 3 models: the technology acceptance model, the unified technology acceptance and use of technology model, and the theory of technical innovation diffusion. Qualitative methodology was employed in this study, and an exploratory design was adopted to gain new insights into a poorly understood phenomenon in the German context. This enabled the researcher to take a flexible approach toward exploring a wide range of secondary data and to choose a different approach when unexpected information emerged. Content analysis was used to identify and interpret the data, and the researcher assured that the meaning associated with the information has concurred with that of the original source.ResultsThis study confirmed that adoption of new technologies in health care depended on individual opinions of the factors relating to them. Some medical professionals believed that technology would interfere with their ability to make independent diagnoses and their relationships with patients. Doctors also feared that technology was a means of management control. In contrast, other medical staff welcomed technology because it provided them with more opportunities to interact with patients and their carers. Generally, patients were more enthusiastic about technology than medical professionals and health care managers because it allowed them to have greater autonomy in selecting health care options. The need for all groups to be involved in the development of the new health care approach was an important outcome, otherwise resistance to it was likely to be greater. In other words, the strategy for change management was the indicator of success or failure. Therefore, following our analysis, a number of practical precepts emerged that could facilitate user acceptance of digital solutions and innovative medical technologies.ConclusionsThe acceptance of digital solutions and innovative medical technology by patients and professionals relies on understanding their anxieties and feelings of insecurity. The process will take time because individuals accept change at different rates. Hence, the development of an extensive user community to fully and successfully implement eHealth is less likely in the short term; however, this should not prevent the push for changes in health care technology.

Widespread diffusion of technical innovations around 300,000 years ago in Europe as a reflection of anthropological and social transformations? New comparative data from the western Mediterranean sites of Orgnac (France) and Cave dall’Olio (Italy)

During MIS (Marine Isotope Stage) 9 and the transition to MIS 8 – around 350–300,000years ago – some lithic assemblages in Europe reflect marked transformations in technical behavior. These transformations involved the standardization of products and the development of diversified and elaborated débitage methods which are considered to be markers of the transition from the Lower to the Middle Palaeolithic i.e. from Mode 2 to Mode 3. Taking the analysis of the sites of Orgnac 3 (Ardèche, France) and Cave dall’Olio (Emilia Romagna, Italy) as a starting point, this paper discusses the variability of these assemblages in Southern Europe as well as the social and anthropological implications of the emergence of new technical behavior. It also aims to show that common features existed both in Northern and Southern Europe. The development of more complex technical systems on a progressively wider territory and at an increasingly earlier age argues in favor of the hypothesis of a close connection with the process of “Neanderthalisation”, possibly accompanied by the transmission of ideas through extensive social networks.

Simulation of technological innovation network diffusion in focal firm cored industrial clusters

This paper studies the processes and results of technological innovation diffusion in industrial clusters with focal firms as cores by network simulation. The technological innovation diffusion networks in these industrial clusters with three important kinds of communication channels have close relationships with final product systems, a new kind of network prototypes for them is brought in, and its construction method is introduced systematically. The technological innovation processes can be divided into different types due to technical innovation ambiguity, adoption cost evolution mechanism and channel power effect, a series of scenarios are designed in which different technical innovation diffusion processes are simulated respectively on swarm platform. The results represent the effects of these key determinants on the diffusion scope and speed as well as their relationships with the network structure.

Interactive Diffusion

In this article, the authors focus attention on a poorly understood aspect of contentious politics: the interaction between the transnational diffusion of new forms of protest behavior and police practices in response to them. Studies of diffusion are usually limited to the diffusion of one kind of innovation by one set of actors to another, as in the diffusion of technical innovations from innovators to adopters. But collective action diffusion also produces a parallel and interactive sequence of “public order” reactions. Using the transnational countersummits that emerged around the turn of the century as their source of evidence, the authors focus on the coevolution of protester and police innovations across national boundaries. The authors’ major finding is that the mechanisms that cause protester and police innovations to diffuse are remarkably similar, even though they can combine in different ways at different moments: promotion, the proactive intervention by a sender actor aimed at deliberate diffusion of an innovation; assessment, the analysis of information on past events and their definition as successes or failures, which leads to adaption of the innovation to new sites and situations; and theorization, the location of technical innovations within broader normative and cognitive frameworks. The authors close with a speculative application of their findings to the recent diffusion of protester tactics and regime responses in the Middle East and North Africa.

Factors that influence the development and diffusion of technical innovations in the construction industry

Some technical innovations diffuse rapidly throughout the construction industry while others take a long time or are never integrated into everyday practice. Understanding the initiation, development, implementation and outcomes of successful technical innovations within the construction industry provides guidance for the improvement of the innovation process. To further this understanding, innovation generating organizations (IGOs) in the construction industry were surveyed and the data were statistically analysed. Two sources were used to identify newly developed products, technologies and management strategies: the Construction Innovation Forum’s NOVA Award website and the Emerging Construction Technologies (ECT) website. A total of 233 innovative products were identified from the two websites. The results showed that there are many statistically significant motivating factors for investment in the initial development of successful technical innovation, barriers and enablers to efficient diffusion and innovation outcomes on construction projects. Additionally, successful development, implementation and diffusion of an innovative product required an average of 38 months, 4700 worker‐hours and $836 000.

Diffusion of technical innovation based on industry-university-institute cooperation in industrial clusters

In this paper, Cellular Automaton model is applied to analyze the diffusion of innovation in industrial clusters. By comparing the simulation of two approaches of technical innovation enterprise independently research and development and Industry-University-Institute Cooperation, we find that Industry-University-Institute Cooperation is an effective way to promote the diffusion of technical innovation in industrial cluster. The result of the simulation suggests that Industry-University-Institute Cooperation is better especially when enterprises' research and development (R&D) capability is very weak or the technology is very difficult. Intensifying the external support from local government, industry associations and financial institutions has a positive effect on the diffusion of innovation in industrial clusters.

Edwin Mansfield’s contributions to the economics of technology

Edwin Mansfield’s contributions to the economics of technology are summarized from the early 1960s through his death in 1997. Mansfield’s methodology is discussed, as are his contributions on: the diffusion of technical innovation, the effect of firm size on innovation, the role of academic and basic research in increasing innovation and productivity, international technology transfer and the inaccuracy of technological forecasts. The economics profession’s evaluation of the relative importance of Mansfield’s work is presented, using as evidence citation counts of his works collected from the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). Identified as among Mansfield’s most important contributions are his work on the importance of academic research for industrial innovations, his empirical estimation of the rates of diffusion of different innovations, and his estimation of the private and social returns from investments in industrial innovations. Finally, we present Mansfield’s advice on the future of the economics of technology.

Long-range forecasting for telecommunications: The role of systems analysis

Three methods of long-range forecasting used in telecommunications demand research are examined. Successful application of each technique depends on the validity of a number of concepts. The author questions whether the concepts used in past research were valid. The technique which he has developed for explicitly modelling the ‘structure’ of systems is described, together with an outline of its use within the areas of technical innovation diffusion, and market place conditions for the acceptability of new services.

The Application of a System of Simultaneous Equations to an Innovation Diffusion Model

The Application of a System of Simultaneous Equations to an Innovation Diffusion Model