Determinants of Adoption of a Major Innovation: The Role of Economic and Organizational Factors

摘要

The report presents the initial findings of a project to understand the processes by which industrial firms adopt, reject, and diffuse technical innovations. The project has several distinct aspects: (1) It focuses on innovation decisions and events in a single industry; (2) The study is longitudinal with a major emphasis on the use of real time instruments to collect data; (3) Hypotheses describing adoption and diffusion process have been drawn from economic, management, and organizational research traditions; and (4) Case studies are conducted to obtain an in-depth view of actual decision making processes. The report examines adoption of a grading system to improve the domestic shoe industry by providing the foundation for extensive automation and productivity. It discusses the shoe industry's market structure, the role of the USM Corporation (formerly the United Shoe Machinery Corporation) as a supplier of footwear manufacturing equipment, prospects for automation, and innovation decision making. Various models of innovation are presented and estimated.