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Innovation Translation and Innovation Diffusion
Article in International Journal of Actor-Network Theory and Technological Innovation · August 2011
DOI: 10.4018/jantti.2009040105
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Innovation Translation, Innovation Diffusion
and the Technology Acceptance Model:
Comparing Three Different Approaches to Theorising Technological Innovation
Arthur Tatnall
Graduate School of Business
Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia
Arthur.Tatnall@vu.edu.au
Abstract
The process of innovation involves getting new ideas accepted and new technologies adopted and
used. There are a number of different approaches to theorising technological innovation and this
chapter will compare and contrast what I suggest are the most important three: Innovation Diffusion,
the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Innovation Translation, giving examples of how each of
these approaches is used in different situations. While there are many advantages to the use of an
Innovation Translation approach, it should not be said that Translation offers a better approach than
the others in all circumstances and that the others have nothing at all to offer; that would be rather
too simplistic a view given the widespread use of Innovation Diffusion and TAM. This chapter
proposes that perhaps it should not be a case of always using either one approach or the other but
rather the use of whichever is most appropriate to a particular investigation.
Keywords
Technological Innovation, Innovation Diffusion, Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Innovation
Translation, Actor-Network Theory (ANT)
TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION
The process of innovation involves getting new ideas accepted or new technologies adopted and used
(Tatnall, 2005). After the discovery of a new idea, or the invention and development of a new
technology it does not automatically follow that this will be adopted by its potential users. (The
investigation of innovation processes discussed here is based on the assumption that the potential
adopters have some choice in the adoption and I will restrict my discussion to adoptions of this type.)
It is important now to distinguish between invention and innovation. While invention involves the
discovery or creation of new ideas or technologies, innovation is the process of putting these ideas or
technologies into commercial or organisational practice (Maguire, Kazlauskas, & Weir, 1994; Tatnall,
2007b). The Oxford dictionary defines innovation as “the alteration of what is established; something
newly introduced” (Oxford, 1973) and is concerned with individual and business decisions to adopt
new inventions (Tatnall, 2007a). The study of innovation does not concern itself with inventors and
the details of their inventions, but about individual and organisational decisions to adopt these new
inventions. Invention does not necessarily invoke innovation, nor is invention necessary or sufficient
for innovation to occur (Tatnall, 2005).
Making any change to the way things are done is a complex undertaking and difficult to achieve
successfully. The success of any innovation is always in doubt because people who are prepared to
support the innovator can be difficult to find and to convince. Although writing of political change
almost five hundred years ago Niccolò Machiavelli summed this up as follows:
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“There is nothing more difficult to handle, more doubtful of success and more dangerous to
carry through than initiating changes ... The innovator makes enemies of all those who
prospered under the old order, and only lukewarm support is forthcoming from those who
would prosper under the new. Their support is lukewarm partly from fear of their adversaries,
who have the existing laws on their side, and partly because men are generally incredulous,
never really trusting new things unless they have tested them by experience.” (Machiavelli,
1515 :19)
One of the difficulties faced in investigating the adoption of technological innovations is that not all of
these innovations are adopted in the form in which they were proposed – not all are adopted without
change. This raises the question of just what was adopted in each case if it was in some way different
from what was proposed by its instigator. This chapter will examine, with examples, the issue of how
technological innovations are adopted or rejected, and how they might sometimes be changed during
the process of adoption.
MODELS OF TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION
To investigate the adoption of new ideas or technologies and how innovation takes place, it is useful to
follow one of the major theories of technological innovation (Al-Hajri & Tatnall, 2007; Tatnall & Dai,
2007). One important difference between some of these theories is the degree to which the adoption
decision is seen as completely rational, and whether provision is made for partial adoption. A brief
discussion of the main approaches to theorising innovation follows.
A number of approaches to theorising technological innovation exist, but this chapter will concentrate
on just the main three: Innovation Diffusion (Rogers, 1995, 2003), the Technology Acceptance Model
(TAM) (F. D. Davis, 1986, 1989; Fred D. Davis, Bagozzi, & Warshaw, 1989) and Innovation
Translation (Callon, 1986; Latour, 1996), giving brief mention to the Theory of Reasoned Action
(Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) and the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen,
1991). Other approaches to theorising innovation including: Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1986),
the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (Taylor & Todd, 1995), the Technology Acceptance
Model 2 (Venkatesh & Davis, 2000), Augmented TAM or Combined TAM and TPB (Taylor & Todd,
1995) and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (Venkatesh, Morris, Davis, &
Davis, 2003). These approaches are, however, not fundamentally different to Innovation Diffusion and
TAM, but rather variants on these.
The Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA)
TRA (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) integrated various studies on attitude from
social psychology with the aim of developing an integrated conceptual framework to predict and
explain an individual’s behaviour towards adoption in a general situational setting. Its designers
postulated that an individual’s behavioural intention is the immediate determinant of behaviour, their
attitude and subjective norm are mediated through behavioural intention and their behavioural and
normative beliefs are mediated through attitude and subjective norm.
The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB)
In TPB, Ajzen (1991) extended the Theory of Reasoned Action as he noted that it was designed to
predict and explain behaviour, or actions, based on the assumption that the behaviour was under a
person’s volitional control. Ajzen argued that some behaviour that is not under a person’s volitional
control might be problematic due to the differences in individuals’ abilities and in external forces. The
modification to create TPB involved adding another construct called perceived behavioural control,
which refers to an individual’s perception of the “… presence or absence of requisite resources and
opportunities” (Ajzen & Madden, 1986 :457) required to perform the specific behaviour.
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The Technology Acceptance Model (TAM)
Davis (1989) developed and validated measures for predicting and explaining adoption and use of
technology which focus on two theoretical constructs: perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use.
These were theorised to be fundamental determinants of system use (Kripanont, 2007). TAM assumes
that a computer user normally acts rationally and uses information in a systematic manner to decide
whether or not to adopt this particular technology in the workplace. As shown in Figure 1 below,
Davis (1986) identified major determinants of technology acceptance and, beginning with the Theory
of Reasoned Action, specified a basis for causal links between the technology’s perceived usefulness
and perceived ease of use along with the individual’s attitude towards using technology and
behavioural intention to explain technology adoption (F. D. Davis, 1986, 1989; Fred D. Davis, et al.,
1989).
Perceived
Usefulness
External
Variables
Attitude
Toward
Behaviour
Behavioural
Intention
Actual
Behaviour
Perceived
Ease of Use
Figure 1: The Technology Acceptance Model (Fred D. Davis, et al., 1989)
TAM theorises that the effects of external variables (such as system characteristics, development
processes or training) on intention to use the technology are mediated by perceived usefulness and
perceive ease of use. Perceived usefulness is also influenced by perceived ease of use because if other
things are equal, the easier the system (technology) is, the more useful it can be (Venkatesh & Davis,
2000). TAM assumes that usage of a particular technology is voluntary (F.D. Davis, 1989), and that
given sufficient time and knowledge about a particular behavioural activity, an individual’s stated
preference to perform the activity (i.e. behavioural intention) will in fact closely resemble the way
they do behave. TAM also has strong behavioural elements and assumes that when someone forms an
intention to act, they will be free to act without limitation (Kripanont, 2007).
Diffusion of Innovations
Rogers describes the Diffusion of Innovations as: “… the process by which an innovation is
communicated through certain channels over time among the members of social systems” (Rogers,
1995 :5), and so a decision not to adopt an innovation relates to the rejection of the new idea. Rogers
asserts that a technological innovation embodies information, and that this information has the
potential to reduce uncertainty. He distinguishes between two kinds of information: software
information that is embodied in the technology (or idea) itself, and innovation-evaluation information
that relates to an innovation’s expected adoption consequences (Rogers, 1995, 2003). Diffusion is thus
considered to be an information exchange process amongst members of a communicating social
network driven by the need to reduce uncertainty. Rogers considers the four main elements of
innovation to be: characteristics of the innovation, the communication channels, the passage of time,
and the social system. To explain the rate of adoption of innovations Rogers suggests consideration of
the following perceived characteristics of innovations: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity,
trialability and observability (Tatnall, 2005).
Innovation Translation
The view of innovation proposed by Actor-Network Theory (ANT), sometimes know as a Sociology
or Translations, considers the world to be full of hybrid entities (Latour, 1993) containing both human
and non-human elements, and offers the notion of heterogeneity to help in the explanation of
technology adoption (Tatnall & Davey, 2007). More specifically though, Innovation Translation
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(Latour, 1986, 1996; Law & Callon, 1988), informed by ANT, makes use of a model of technological
innovation which uses these ideas, along with the concept that innovations are often not adopted in
their entirety but only after ‘translation’ into a form that is more appropriate for use by the potential
adopter.
Callon et al. (1983) propose that translation involves all the strategies through which an actor
identifies other actors and arranges them in relation to each other, while Latour (1996) speaks of how
‘chains of translation’ can transform a global problem, such as the transportation needs of a city like
Paris (or the design of a new information system) into a local problem like continuous transportation
(or using Visual Basic to obtain data from an Oracle database).
Latour (1986) maintains that in an innovation translation model the movement of an innovation
through time and space is in the hands of people, each of whom may react to it in different ways: they
may modify it, deflect it, betray it, add to it, appropriate it, or let it drop. He adds that this is true for
the spread of anything from goods and artefacts to claims and ideas and that the adoption of an
innovation comes as a consequence of the actions of everyone in the chain of actors who has anything
to do with it. He suggests that each of these actors shapes the innovation to their own ends, but if no
one takes up the innovation then its movement simply stops. Here, instead of a process of
transmission, we have a process of continuous transformation (Latour, 1996) where faithful
acceptance involving no changes is a rarity requiring explanation. “Instead of the transmission of the
same token – simply deflected or slowed down by friction – you get ... the continuous transformation
of the token.” (Latour, 1986 :286). McMaster et al. (1997) note that innovations do not wait passively
to be invented or discovered, but that each actor translates and contributes its own resources to the
final result (Tatnall & Gilding, 1999). A translation model requires the focus to be on understanding
how actor-networks are created, strengthened and weakened, rather than on cause and effect
(McMaster, et al., 1997).
Latour (1996) suggests that with the translation model the initial idea hardly counts and the innovation
is not endowed with autonomous power or ‘propelled by a brilliant inventor’, but moves only if it
interests one group of actors or another. Movement of the innovation is a consequence of energy given
to it by everyone in the chain and when the innovation does interest a new group they transform it a
little or perhaps a lot. Latour notes that, except in rare cases, there can be ‘no transportation without
transformation’, and that “... after many recruitments, displacements and transformations, the project,
having become real, then manifests, perhaps, the characteristics of perfection, profitability, beauty, and
efficiency that the diffusion model located in the starting point.” (Latour, 1996 :119)
Technological Innovation and Essentialism
Grint and Woolgar (1997) contend that most views of technology attribute an “essential inner core of
technical characteristics” (Grint & Woolgar, 1997 :9) to the non-human elements, while portraying the
human elements as secondary and transitory. They contend that contemporary ideas of technology
often still rely on the idea of an essential capacity within a technological entity which accounts for its
degree of acceptance or rejection, but argue that technology would be better thought of as being
constructed entirely through human interpretation. A significant problem with an essentialist paradigm
arises if a researcher tries to reconcile the views of all parties involved in the innovation on what
particular essences are significant. The difficulty is that people often see different ‘essential attributes’
in any specific technological or human entity, making it hard to identify and settle on the ones that
allegedly were responsible for the adoption (Tatnall, 2002).
For example, what are the essential characteristics of a Four Wheel Drive (4WD) vehicle as seen by
each of the following groups: cross country driving/camping enthusiast, travelling salesperson, young
male driver, mother taking her kids to school, others …? The problem, of course, is that each group
see these characteristics quite differently. The cross country driving enthusiast will, of course, be
interested primarily in the off-road aspects of the vehicle, but these will be of little interest to the
mother taking her kids to school. The travelling salesperson will be concerned with the amount of
space in the vehicle for goods and sales samples, while the young male driver is probably more
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concerned with the appearance and dominance of the vehicle. How do you then decide which
characteristics led to its adoption?
EXAMPLES COMPARING EACH APPROACH
In this next section I will present and discuss several research example of the use of each approach to
theorising technological innovation in the adoption of different artefacts. For each of these examples
data was obtained by semi-structured interviews with the human protagonists, and from documents
and discussions with other humans on behalf of the non-human actors.
Adoption of a Slide and Negative Scanner by an SME
The members of a small Australian publishing company do all their own pre-publication preparation
(Tatnall, 2002). When they accept the final version of a manuscript from an author, one of them does
the copy editing while another designs the cover. In the mid-1990s this small to medium enterprise
(SME) decided it needed to improve the appearance of its covers and several options were considered
until someone thought of using a photograph as the cover background. The problem was that most of
the suitable photographs they had were not in digital format but in the form of colour slides and
printed pictures (- this was before the time when everyone owned a digital camera!). The question then
was how to convert these photographs into a suitable digital format to print on the cover along with the
cover text. The solution decided upon was to purchase a slide and negative scanner that considerably
improved the quality of the covers, also making the process of producing them much simpler. But
what made them decide to adopt this particular item of technology?
Using an Innovation Diffusion approach the researcher would have considered the company to have
been mainly influenced by attributes and characteristics of the technology itself. The researcher would
investigate whether the directors had considered the relative advantage, compatibility, complexity,
trialability and observability of this technology compared with the alternatives of using a flat-bed
scanner, getting an outside printer to do the scanning, or not using a cover of this type at all. In this
particular case the directors certainly did see some relative advantage in using the slide scanner,
particularly as they both had large numbers of colour slides that they had taken over the years. There
was, however, one major disadvantage of this technology and that was its high cost: the slide scanner
was around four times as expensive as a good flat-bed scanner. The slide scanner also did not come
out well on compatibility or complexity as it was quite different, and much more complex to use than
the flat-bed scanner alternative. It was possible for the company to arrange trial use of the scanner,
which was lucky as it had proved difficult to find anyone else using one and so its observability was
low. On this basis it is difficult to see why they would have adopted it at all.
With TAM, the researcher would need to look at whether the members of the company thought that a
slide scanner would be a useful investment to meet their needs, and whether they thought it would be
easy to use. It would conclude that unless these requirements were met, purchase and adoption of the
slide scanner would not proceed.
When an Innovation Translation model is applied, however, the situation is seen quite differently. The
socio-technical network consisting of the publishing company personnel, their computers, and their
books was destabilised by the need to find a new way of producing book covers. The slide scanner
(also seen as an actor seeking to enter the network) offered a new problematisation in which existing
(and future) slides and negatives could easily be turned into digital images. Part of this
problematisation was that any of the directors’ old slides could easily be turned into digital images, not
just those required for book covers. As well as the main application of producing book covers, the
directors quickly saw advantages in a device that could also easily convert the old slides and negatives
they had each taken of their children and of their holidays into digital format: this seemed to provide a
good alternative to their ageing slide projectors, and produced a strong interessement in favour of this
technology and against flat-bed scanners. It was thus a combination of factors, some business-related
and others rather more personal, that the Translation model suggests could be seen as leading to the
enrolment of this technology and hence its adoption.
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Adoption of Mobile E-Training in a Factory
A large factory is keen to ensure that its workers are well trained to safely use all its new machinery
and equips each employee with a Tablet PC fitted with wireless networking containing delivery
software and a profiling program for the particular employee. Each factory machine has its own
operating procedures, and details of safety considerations are stored in the machine. As an employee
moves through the factory to use different machines this safety information is made available through
wireless networking. Software on the machine recognises the Tablet PC of a new operator and
automatically downloads content to this Tablet PC which configures it to what it has determined to be
the learning style of the employee (Tatnall & Davey, 2003). Although factory management issues each
employee with their own Tablet PC, encouraging or forcing them to use it is another matter. What
factors determine the likelihood or adoption of this innovation?
With a TAM approach the researcher would look at the factory workers’ behavioural intention to use
the technology, based on whether the researcher thought that they perceived the technology to be easy
to use and whether they perceived it to be useful to them. The researcher would need to speak with the
factory workers in an to attempt to determine this. While using an Innovation Diffusion approach the
researcher would begin by looking at how employees and management regarded the characteristics of
the technology and whether it was useful or easy to use, in an actor-network analysis the researcher
would first identify as many as possible of the (human and non-human) actors. In this case some of
these actors are obvious: factory employees, management, factory machines, learning packages, Tablet
PC, wireless networking, delivery software and the profiling program. But there may well also be
other actors. The way to proceed now is to interview the actors. While it might seem odd to speak of
‘interviewing’ the non-humans, this is done by looking at instruction manuals, speaking to various
humans about them, investigating how, and why, they were built and any other techniques that
simulate an interview situation. One of the things that will arise in these ‘interviews’ is the existence
of other actors not identified earlier. We then proceed to ‘follow the actors’ (Latour, 1996) in
determining what is important and what is not.
With the ANT approach discovering networks of associations and interactions comes next. If the
employer-employee relationship in this company is such that the workers are suspicious of any
initiative coming from management then this is likely to be significant. At this stage we attempt not to
judge the likely consequences to potential adoption, just to note this interaction. Most of the other
interactions are between the factory workers and various non-human actors. In common with an
approach using Innovation Diffusion we would investigate how they use the machines; is this simple
and straightforward, or is it difficult and clumsy? What about the interactions with each of the
computer-based technologies? How does the employee interact with the learning package? Do they
like using the Tablet PC? Do they find carrying it around a nuisance? How does management view
these technologies? Do they have any interactions with them? How did they decide on the learning
package? Why did they decide to use mobile technologies rather than a training room? One difference
between these approaches to theorising innovation is that Innovation Diffusion concentrates more of
the characteristics of the technology and TAM looks at its perceived usefulness and ease of use, while
Innovation Translation tries to look beyond this to investigate the human and non-human interactions
involved.
Adoption of a PC-Based Accounting System by an SME
Suppose that you were researching how an Australian SME, which had previously done its accounting
manually, was now considering the adoption of a PC-based accounting system. If you were using an
Innovation Diffusion approach you would probably begin by considering the characteristics of PCbased accounting systems (Tatnall, 2001, 2002). For each of these you might look at its functionality,
its compatibility with those used by accountants, its ease of use and so on, and then how these
characteristics might help or hinder its adoption. You might then look at the channels through which
the SME learned about this innovation: their accountant, the business press, training courses or friends
from other companies, and how effective these were in delivering the message. Next you might
consider aspects of the ‘culture’ of the SME; things like whether it was a family business, how much
money it was prepared to spend, and the type of work it does.
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With a TAM approach you would try to find out whether those people working in the SME thought
that a PC-based accounting system would be easy to use and whether it would be more useful to them
than a manual approach in doing their accounting work. You would then look at the likelihood that
these intentions would result in action to purchase and adopt such a system.
With an Innovation Translation approach, on the other hand, you would concentrate on issues of
network formation and investigate the human and non-human alliances and networks built up by the
SME, their customers, the technology, and other actors involved in the implementation. Concentrating
on the negotiations that allow the network to be configured by the enrolment of both human and nonhuman allies would be important. You would consider the accounting system’s characteristics only as
network effects resulting from association. ANT would suggest that it is not any innate properties of
these systems that are important, but rather network associations such as the extent to which the
business has been enrolled in the time-saving possibilities for use in calculating GST provisions and
other things. You would look at the process of re-definition in which the SME tried to seek
compromises from the accounting package, and how the accounting package sought to impose
definitions of professional accounting and formal documentation on them; how it ‘interested’ the
business and then got them to follow its interests, so becoming indispensable to them. In this case
what was then finally adopted for this task was probably not the accounting package originally
examined as such, but a translation of this package in which it becomes a tool for their specific use
(Tatnall, 2001, 2002).
Retired People Adopting the Internet and e-Commerce
One reason often given by retired people (Bosler, 2001; Gross, 1998) for adopting Internet
technologies is, quite simply so that the world does not pass them by and so that they won’t be left out
of things. The means of social interaction is increasingly moving away from posting letters to e-mail,
and those not using e-mail are finding it harder to keep in touch. Many retired people are finding that
an e-mail address is becoming essential (Perry, 2000; Tatnall & Lepa, 2003) in order to converse
sensibly with their overseas friends and with their grandchildren (Alexander, 2000; Lepa & Tatnall,
2006). These, and related reasons for adoption of Internet technologies such as “All my friends use email and I’ll be left out if I don’t” (Council on the Ageing, 2000) suggest that characteristics of the
technology have less to do with things than do social interactions and the creation and maintenance of
interpersonal networks.
For retired people the issue of whether or not to adopt Internet technologies has been problematised
(Callon, 1986) not as one that relates to diverse characteristics of the technology or to ease of use, but
as one largely of communication and keeping in touch with family and friends. The Internet has been
translated here to include a means by which these people can maintain their place in society and keep
relevant to their family and friends (Bosler, 2001). What they have adopted is not the Internet as a
business might know it, but a translation of the Internet resulting in technology that offers a means of
maintaining contact with the world (Tatnall, 2000).
For some years now the banks have been changing the problematisation of banking from an activity
carried out in-person in suburban branches to one undertaken using ATMs and the Internet. In doing
this they are translating banking from a social activity to an electronic one. Many older people have
resisted this change as is demonstrated by their reluctance as a group to adopt electronic banking
(Tatnall & Lepa, 2001). This also is changing, and research into this topic needs to consider much
more than just the ‘superior’ characteristics of electronic banking as might be suggested by an
Innovation Diffusion approach. Perhaps TAM’s constructs of perceived ease of use and usefulness in
the minds of these older people might be used to explain this, but other influences such as peer group
and family pressure, that would be picked up by an ANT approach, would be missed by TAM.
Adoption of the Bizewest Portal
In 2001 the Western Region Economic Development Organisation (WREDO) in Melbourne began
operation of a business-to-business portal for use by small to medium enterprises. This innovative
project, funded from a Government ‘e-commerce early movers’ grant, was to create a horizontal portal
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– Bizewest, which would enable SMEs in Melbourne’s west to engage in e-commerce transactions
with each other (Tatnall, 2007a; Tatnall & Burgess, 2002). Although quite a large number of
businesses had joined with Bizewest by late 2002, a proposal at this time to introduce an annual fee to
cover the costs of hosting the portal was not well received. The grant to set up the portal provided no
funds for on-going maintenance and enhancement, and Bizewest was running out of money. In early
2003 the WREDO Board began considering options for the Bizewest portal, and in June 2003
reluctantly terminated its operation. The birth and death of the portal makes an interesting study.
A number of interviews were undertaken in the early stages of portal implementation to determine
why different SMEs had decided to adopt the Bizewest portal. Some excerpts from a few of these
follow, the first being from a medium-sized company that stores frozen food and transports it to
supermarkets and other locations around the country. The general manager described benefits in
adopting the portal in terms of time savings and better service. “I think it will probably just give us a
chance to give the client a quicker on-line communication to know where his stock is – when it is
arriving, when it’s gone out, and that it is the right stuff come and gone.” (Tatnall & Burgess, 2004). A
major reason that this company adopted the portal, however, was in the hope that it would provide a
better opportunity to deal with people in the local region (Tatnall & Burgess, 2004). He said that
although he did not understand much about the portal or what it would do he thought that it was “a
really good idea” and was going to provide many benefits for everybody in the region (Tatnall &
Pliaskin, 2007). What this company then adopted was not the Bizewest portal in its entirety but a
translation of it to become a means to deal better with people in the local region.
The next business interviewed was a small printing company where the manager remarked: “It was a
great opportunity to get in at the ground floor and be one of the front runners and really I suppose that
the earlier that you are in the better chance you have of reaching those new clients”. He then went on
to add: “The other thing was that being a small company, advertising can be quite expensive, and we
thought that if we can get this free it would be fantastic.” (Pliaskin & Tatnall, 2005). This business
wanted to translate the portal primarily to become a means of advertising, and were not really
interested in most of its other features. Another response was from the IT Manager of a small textile
company: “I think the way that we will go is like many businesses; we will dip our toe in the water
and do some basic ordering: stationery that’s a common one.” This also involved a translation of the
portal, this time to become just a means for ordering supplies (Tatnall, 2007a).
A simplistic view of the portal adoption decisions would have it that the businesses involved made
these decisions primarily because of the portal’s characteristics or ease of use. Research, however,
shows (Tatnall & Burgess, 2002) this not to be the case as interviews with the business proprietors
indicated that business needs and expectations were a much more significant factor and in each case
indicated that reasons for adoption were not closely related to the characteristics of the technology
itself as the theory of Innovation Diffusion (Rogers, 1995) would suggest. This research also suggests
that the potential users did not consider ease of use or even usefulness as TAM would require. Most of
the companies that adopted the portal early knew little about the technology but were excited by the
concept of getting onto the Web and just wanted to be involved. Many businesses adopting the portal
did so because it seemed to them to be ‘a good idea’ rather than because they had any clear idea of its
benefits. Few had looked objectively at the characteristics of portal technology or business-to-business
e-commerce, and common reasons for adoption included: “If other businesses adopt it and we don’t
we will be left behind.” “All the talk is about e-commerce and how it is the way of the future.” and
“My kids tell me that everyone will be on the Internet soon and we had better be too” (Tatnall &
Pliaskin, 2005).
When put together with similar responses from other portal users it seems that the reason for the
portal’s initial success and later failure was that many SMEs adopted because it seemed to them to be
‘a good idea’ rather than because they had any clear idea of its benefits. The portal’s initial success
was because of the excitement generated by this new technology and because WREDO was well
trusted. It had little to do with any evaluation of the technology itself and everything to do with
WREDO’s problematisation of the portal and its success in interesting them in the portal’s
possibilities, even if they did not fully understand them. It finally failed for these same reasons
(Tatnall, 2007a).
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Information Systems and Rural GPs
Over the last 15 years much research and development has been undertaken on the use of Medical
Information Technology. In this time many Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
products have been developed to support Medical General Practitioners (GP) in all aspects of their
work in Australia (GPSRG, 1998), but despite this development effort many GPs are still reluctance to
make full use of ICT. This is particularly true of GPs working in rural areas in Australia (Everitt &
Tatnall, 2003; Tatnall, et al., 2004). If GPs are not making as much use of these systems as they could,
the question then is: if these ICT products have been specially developed for GPs, then why are GPs
reluctant to use them?
Increases in the complexity of health care delivery and continual increases in costs have increased the
need for finding better ways of managing medical practice. While one might expect that, being highly
educated professionals, most GPs would be at the forefront of the information management revolution,
research shows that particularly in rural Australia this is not entirely the case (Everitt & Tatnall, 2003).
When General Practices do use ICT it is often for basic record keeping only, and in many instances the
GPs themselves are seen to make little of no use of ICT (Burgess & Trethowan, 2002). In the late
1990s the General Practice Strategy Review Group (GPSRG, 1998) identified a number of sociotechnical reasons for the slow uptake of ICT by GPs. These included: concerns about privacy and
confidentiality, concerns about a computer on the desk interfering with consultations, costs, the lack of
any obvious benefit for GPs, the lack of suitable hardware and software, concerns about ICT
reliability, and lack of skills and support.
This study (Deering, 2008) investigated GPs’ uptake of ICT in a Division of General Practice in
Central Victoria. This grouping of GPs is one of over 100 such Divisions around Australia and is
primarily funded by the Commonwealth Department of Health and Aged Care to link General
Practitioners with each other and to link GPs with their communities to improve health outcomes
(Everitt & Tatnall, 2003). One of the main findings of the study was that it is important to note the
difference between the adoption of ICT by General Practice and adoption and use by the General
Practitioners themselves (Deering, 2008). The adoption process has been complex and many
stakeholders have grappled with issues such as the cost of computerisation, the rapid changes in
technology, the lack of agreed standards and the problems of introducing ICT solutions in to the daily
work place of general practice. The study was undertaken through case studies and extended
interviews, and revealed a number of interesting findings. In one case the reason for non-adoption of
ICT in a particular medical practice had nothing to do with the technology itself, but was because the
present Practice Principal’s father was not comfortable with ICT. He was not far off retirement but
still practicing at the time, and no one wanted to make him feel uncomfortable by introducing
technology with which he was unfamiliar. The practice manager said this was never articulated openly
but all knew it was so (Deering, 2008).
A modern medical practice is expected to have computerised, and ICT in general practice is now taken
as a given. In many cases though, what the practice has adopted is not all aspects of medical ICT but a
translation of this to fulfil the administrative needs of the practice, rather than to provide specific
support for the GP through the use of electronic clinical decision-making support software. This can
be well explained using innovation translation.
CONCLUSION
This chapter has illustrated some of the significant advantages of using an Innovation Translation
approach to the theorising of innovation adoptions. Despite this, however, it is far too simplistic to
suggest that Innovation Translation offers a better approach than Innovation Diffusion or TAM to
theorising innovation in all situations. Many studies have shown the explanatory value of Innovation
Diffusion, particularly in relation to large scale adoptions such as (to offer some samples from Rogers
(1995)): bottle-feeding of babies in the third world, the diffusion of modern maths in Pittsburgh,
diffusion of the News and the diffusion of a medical drug.
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It might be suggested that the relationship between these two types of approach: Innovation Diffusion
and TAM on the one hand and Innovation Translation on the other, has something in common to that
between the macro and micro elements of Newtonian and quantum mechanics in physics. While
quantum mechanics is needed to explain what goes on when fundamental particles and atoms interact,
for everyday occurrences Newtonian mechanics is quite suitable. Likewise I would suggest that while
Actor-Network Theory and Innovation Translation better explain the detail of how individuals and
specific organisations adopt technological innovations, Innovation Diffusion does a good job in
explaining large scale adoptions.
Perhaps I am being a little unfair, but personally I cannot see much value in the explanatory value of
TAM, as reliance on perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use seems rather obvious and of little
value in understanding what is really going on and why some innovations are adopted in one way in
one place and another in a different situation. After effectively ruling out TAM, perhaps it should not
be a case of using either Innovation Diffusion or Innovation Translation but whichever of these
approaches is most appropriate to each particular investigation.
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Cite as:
Tatnall, A. (2011). Innovation Translation, Innovation Diffusion and the Technology Acceptance
Model: Comparing Three Different Approaches to Theorising Technological Innovation. ActorNetwork Theory and Technology Innovation: Advancements and New Concepts. A. Tatnall.
Hershey, USA, IGI Global: 52-66.
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