EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Identifying Formal and Informal Influence in Technology Adoption with Network Externalities

Catherine Tucker

Management Science, 2008, vol. 54, issue 12, 2024-2038

Abstract: Firms introducing network technologies (whose benefits depend on who installs the technology) need to understand which user characteristics confer the greatest network benefits on other potential adopters. To examine which adopter characteristics matter, I use the introduction of a video-messaging technology in an investment bank. I use data on its 2,118 employees, their adoption decisions, and their 2.4 million subsequent calls. The video-messaging technology can also be used to watch TV. Exogenous shocks to the benefits of watching TV are used to identify the causal (network) externality of one individual user's adoption on others' adoption decisions. I allow this network externality to vary in size with a variety of measures of informal and formal influence. I find that adoption by either managers or workers in "boundary spanner" positions has a large impact on the adoption decisions of employees who wish to communicate with them. Adoption by ordinary workers has a negligible impact. This suggests that firms should target those who derive their informal influence from occupying key boundary-spanning positions in communication networks, in addition to those with sources of formal influence, when launching a new network technology.

Keywords: networks; network externalities; technology management; video conferencing; social networks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (93)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1080.0897 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:54:y:2008:i:12:p:2024-2038

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Management Science from INFORMS Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Asher ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-22
Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:54:y:2008:i:12:p:2024-2038