Understanding the diffusion and adoption of telecommunication innovations

what we know and what we don't know

Heidi Tscherning

Jan Damsgaard

pp. 39-60

in: Ana M Bernardos, Karlheinz Kautz (eds), Open it-based innovation: moving towards Cooperative it transfer and knowledge diffusion, Berlin, Springer, 2008

Abstract

This paper provides a systematic account about what we know and what we don't know about the diffusion and adoption of telecommunication innovations. As our sample, we obtained research papers from IFIP 8.6 conferences, the International Conference on Information Systems, and the European Conference on Information Systems from the past 10 years concerning telecommunication innovation diffusion and adoption to examine what aspects of the diffusion and adoption process are accentuated or overlooked using a general view of the process. As our theoretical vehicle, we build a holistic framework that comprises the innovation, the unit of adoption, and their interaction as captured by demand pull and supply push forces. The framework also takes into account the environment that embeds the diffusion and adoption. We find that there are certain shortcomings in the existing research within the field that need to be addressed to provide a more comprehensive view of adoption and diffusion of telecommunication technologies.