Mobile Virtual Work A New Paradigm phần 9 potx

320 Sven Lindmark, Mats Magnusson and Filippo Renga

ablers and disablers of the development and diffusion of services for mo￾bile work. Following case studies of companies developing services for

mobile work, we primarily attempt to identify and analyze factors influ￾encing the development and diffusion of such services. An attempt is also

made to identify some of the practices utilized by companies to overcome

the difficulties, in order to identify recommendations for how these proc￾esses can be accelerated. We will now turn to a theoretical exposition of

issues concerning the development and diffusion of innovations. Given the

composite nature of the phenomenon studied, the exposition draws upon

studies from several fields, e.g. innovation management, entrepreneurship,

marketing, and strategy.

14.2 Development and diffusion of innovations

The diffusion of innovations has been studied for a long time. The most in￾fluential work in this cross-disciplinary field is doubtless the innovation

diffusion model of Rogers (1995, first published in 1962). The key com￾ponents in this model are: (1) an innovation, i.e. an idea, practice or object

that is perceived as new by someone; (2) communication channels allow￾ing exchange of information; (3) time, in terms of the time until an innova￾tion is adopted by someone; and (4) a social system, including the suppli￾ers of the innovation, customers and users. By investigating these different

dimensions, Rogers found that different individuals adopt innovations at

various points in time, revealing consistently different behaviours. Based

on this, he proposed a division into five categories of adopters: innovators,

early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. The very first

individuals that adopt an innovation are the so-called innovators, who are

then followed by the early adopters, and so forth. This categorization has

gained notable appreciation and widespread use also outside the scientific

community, as it has been made more popular by Moore (1991), who en￾riched the theory by adding empirical descriptions of how such diffusion

takes place in the information technology (IT) industry.

Rogers’ model is based upon the assumption that adoption of an innova￾tion is normally distributed in a population. A later study by Mahajan et al.

(1990) found this to be a fair approximation at an overall level, even

though they stressed that the categorization of each single individual

should not be determined only by when the individual in question adopts

the innovation, but rather by what kind of information the individual de￾pends upon in order to arrive at a decision, thereby underlining the need to

move from mere descriptions of the adoption process to the factors influ-

14 Factors Influencing the Diffusion of New Mobile Services 321

encing whether a customer will adopt a new product or service at a specific

point in time.

A shortcoming of the predominant perspective on innovation diffusion

is its tendency to focus on the adopters of new ideas, practices or products,

and to overlook the influence of the suppliers of products and services

(Frambach 1993). In an attempt to combine ideas from different streams of

innovation diffusion studies, Frambach (1993) suggests that a more com￾prehensive model of innovation diffusion should comprise: (1) adopter

characteristics, (2) information characteristics, (3) information processing

characteristics, (4) innovation characteristics, (5) competitive environment,

(6) innovation development, (7) network participation, and (8) marketing

strategy used by the provider. This clearly highlights the need to consider

factors related to the process of developing new products and services, and

even more the need to consider marketing and competition characteristics.

We will now turn to an exposition of some specific issues concerning the

development and diffusion of new products and services that surface in

different research streams.

14.2.1 Strategic issues related to resources and capabilities

A fundamental problem for innovation is the resources and capabilities

that are held by the organisations involved. As Prahalad and Hamel (1990)

pointed out, resources and capabilities are at the centre of innovation ac￾tivities. Grant (1991) underlines this in his model on the formulation of re￾source-based strategies, regarding the existing resources of a firm as the

starting point for the formulation of what offerings the firm should develop

for its customers. Amit and Schoemaker (1993) present a more explicit

connection between the resource side of the organisation and the competi￾tion in the marketplace. They argue that a key element of strategy is to

match internal strategic assets with strategic industry factors. Taken to￾gether, these ideas indicate the potential problem of new actors not having

the required internal resources to realize new services in the way they had

initially intended to do. Yet another potential barrier is the perceived in￾compatibility between existing resources and the new ones required.

Firms, in this case potentially both service providers and customers, often

focus on business units instead of resources (Prahalad and Hamel 1990), or

rely too much on the existing resource base (Leonard-Barton 1992), lead￾ing to inertia in the adoption of new innovations if new resources are

needed.

A problem related to the resources and capabilities of firms is the need

for absorptive capacity (Cohen and Levinthal 1990) of business partners,

322 Sven Lindmark, Mats Magnusson and Filippo Renga

in order for them to be able to understand the advantages provided, and to

make it possible to utilize their potential. When dealing with completely

new products and services, it can be assumed that the need for absorptive

capacity does not only apply to a set of collaborating companies on the

supply side. Most likely, the need is also relevant for customers and users,

as they normally require a certain level of relevant knowledge in order to

understand the value of a new product or service and to use the innovation

in the intended manner.

While received theory primarily deals with barriers to innovation, and

has less to say about how to enable innovation, a few aspects of the latter

should be brought up. On a general level, Rogers (1976) argues that the in￾novativeness of a system is positively related to the system’s connected￾ness, as well as its openness, something that underlines the role of “weak

ties” (Granovetter 1973). More specifically, as mentioned by Rogers

(1976), these ties constitute a fruitful means to avoid exaggerated homo￾phily and bring in new ideas. In systems where all parties resemble each

other to a high degree, the requisite variety (Ashby 1956) is limited, and

hence the potential for innovation to take place is limited (see e.g. Nonaka

1990). Turning back to the reasoning about absorptive capacity (Cohen

and Levinthal 1990), it can be inferred that the relationship between the

involved parties’ knowledge bases is ambivalent. A shared basis is needed

to facilitate communication and make common interpretation possible, yet

significant diversity of knowledge ought to be fruitful for innovation.

As all the resources needed to realize a new product or service are rarely

present within one single organisation, another factor that needs to be

taken into consideration is the difficulties related to multi-organisational

innovation. When innovations are the result of several actors, the coordina￾tion of these in order to generate a new product or service is often com￾plex. First of all, the firms involved may have different goals, strategies

and priorities, rendering the coordination of development activities far

from trivial. One thing that may facilitate the necessary coordination is the

existence of a strong lead firm. However, in new fields of business it is not

always clear which firm should play this role, which is demanding but,

from a business perspective, interesting and potentially rewarding.

Another key component for managing change and innovation, primarily

relating to the discourse on resources and capabilities, is the existence of

dynamic capabilities (Teece et al. 1997). Firms need to develop capabili￾ties to transform and renew their resource-base over time, in terms of a

particular set of managerial skills and organisational routines. In other

words, firms need to become good at learning and unlearning (Hedberg

1981). This applies to both providers of services and their potential cus-