Theme 3
-Number of sales to time is often S-shaped
-Starts off with lag phase (a few people try out the innovation), then take-off, then saturation
(starts to level off, top of S curve)
-When curve starts going down, new technology substitutes it
-But often not as simple as substitution (on powerpoint), many technologies don’t take off
-If you understand the diffusion patterns you can adapt your strategy, for example finding
bridging markets at the right time
-Important for policy makers
-Diffusion brings societal change, invention does not
-Sociological perspective: Rogers, diffusion is about networks, communication, understand
people’s behavior is essential to understand diffusion, the adoption phase is divided into
three phases, pre-decision (advertisement, influencing, here the company can influence) ,
decision-making, post-decision (confirmation, trying to keep you within the technology and
influence others)
-The perfect innovation distribution is formed as a bell curve, adopters adopt at different
times, adopters adopt at different times based on their innovativeness (which in turn is based
on socioeconomic status, personality, values and communication behavior)
Innovation studies perspective
-Grübler
-Diffusion is the result of sociological and technological change
-Looks at time and space
-Importance of networks, but not social, looks at spacial
-The later a country/region adopts the faster the diffusion but the lower the diffusion rate
(saturation will start as new innovations replaces this one)
Market perspective
-Anderson & Jacobsson
-Learning curves/experience/economies of scale
-Self-reinforcing mechanisms
-Network externalities
-Technological interrelatedness
-Increased awareness of technology, more accepted and creates changes in society
-Along the diffusion process there are three different market steps, nursing markets
(technological problems, has to adapt itself or the market has to adapt etc., only satisfies a
small group of users), bridging market (legitimacy increases, technological uncertainty
decreases, the dominant design is settled on in the end of a bridging market), mass market
(high price-performance ratio, satisfies a lot of users)
-Bridging markets are often overlooked, policy makers need to see when it is time to enter a
bridging market
-Identify adopters (key customers with a lot of resources) in the nursing, bridging markets
-Spatial diffusion happens faster in some markets than others due to different current
infrastructure (Grübbler)
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