INNOVATORS AND EARLY ADOPTERS IN THE DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS: A LITERATURE REVIEW

Ozgur Dedehayir (), Roland J. Ortt (), Carla Riverola () and Francesc Miralles ()
Additional contact information
Ozgur Dedehayir: Queensland University of Technology, 2 George Street, 4000 Brisbane, Australia
Roland J. Ortt: Delft University of Technology, Jaffalaan 5, 2628 BX Delft, The Netherlands
Carla Riverola: La Salle — Universitat Ramon Llull, Sant Joan la Salle 42, Barcelona 08022, Spain
Francesc Miralles: La Salle — Universitat Ramon Llull, Sant Joan la Salle 42, Barcelona 08022, Spain

International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), 2017, vol. 21, issue 08, 1-27

Abstract: Despite accounting for a very small percentage of the population that adopts an innovation, the ‘innovators’ and ‘early adopters’ — representing the two earliest groups of individuals to acquire the new product or service — play a crucial role in the dissemination of the innovation to larger market segments. The objective of this paper is to understand the characteristics of these individuals that positively influence their decisions to adopt innovations. We argue that awareness of these traits will enable firms to attain speedier uptake of their offerings while aiding policymakers achieve quicker and wider proliferation of new technologies intended for societal benefit. We undertake a review of the literature studying the diffusion of innovations and show future directions that this framework should take to analyse the adoption lifecycle.

Keywords: Innovation; diffusion; new product development; product lifecycle; segmentation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

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DOI: 10.1142/S1363919617400102

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