Diffusion of Innovations: Spreading New Ideas and Technology

Diffusion of innovationsDiffusion of innovations denotes the spread of innovations, through market or nonmarket channels, from first implementation anywhere in the world to other countries and regions and to other markets and firms. Frank Bass published a model to explain the diffusion of innovations curve, the then-named Bass diffusion modelBass diffusion model. Though the Bass model can explain the dynamicsDynamics where all potential adoptersPotential adopters become adopters, it cannot explain the dynamics where not all potential adopters become adopters. To resolve the shortcoming of the Bass model, it is necessary to turn to theTheory of epidemics theory of epidemicsEpidemics. The Kermack-McKendrick theory was the sourceSource of the SIR modelSIR model. However, the interests of epidemiologistEpidemiologist and managers are wide apart. Epidemiologists aim at having as few newly infectedInfected as possible stretched over a time interval as long as possible. On the other hand, managers crave for as many new adopters as possible as quickly as possible. But how to intervene successfully in such a system? All in all, there are three different leverage points to influence the number of new adopters, two of them well known, but the third one is rarely addressed.