Diffusion as a Process of Creative Adoption

Abstract

This paper elaborates an integrated framework for understanding diffusion as a process of creative adoptions in the business sector. Within the context of the economics of localized technological change, adoption is viewed as a complementary component of a broader process of adjusting the technology when unexpected events in the product and factor markets push firms towards a creative reaction. When the stock of adoptions exerts a suitable combined effect both on the gross profitability of adoption and on the costs of adoption, such that the net profitability of adoption and hence the rates of new adoption follow a quadratic path, the dynamics of creative adoption can engender a S-shaped diffusion process. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006