Robertson, A and Crouchley, R and Brown, D H and Lockett, N J (2007) The search for innovators and early adopters of e-collaborative technologies within small and medium sized enterprises in the UK. Working Paper. The Department of Management Science, Lancaster University.
Abstract
New product diffusion theory predicts that innovators and early adopters are critical to the success of new innovations. The rate at which enterprises adopt e-Science technologies must therefore rely upon reliable market intelligence so that the critical early stages of adoption are successfully navigated by developers and planners. Failure to understand attitudes towards new technologies can lead to even useful technologies being under-adopted. This paper applies a survey based methodology to develop estimates of demand for web based virtual Collaborative technologies. We show that approximately 76% of the 1029 firms that we interviewed are technologically ready to deploy these technologies. We also show that 10% of all firms are ready look at these technologies as solutions to collaborative problem solving.