Characteristics‐based innovation adoption: scale and model validation
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/10610421111157874 |
| Pages | 343-355 |
| Date | 23 August 2011 |
| Published date | 23 August 2011 |
| Author | Richard L. Flight,Giles D'Souza,Arthur W. Allaway |
| Subject Matter | Marketing |
Characteristics-based innovation adoption:
scale and model validation
Richard L. Flight
Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois, USA, and
Giles D’Souza and Arthur W. Allaway
The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The aim of this paper is to develop a measurement scale that encompasses a wide array of product characteristics. In addition, a
comprehensive model is developed and tested illustrating the relationship among product characteristics and with adoption.
Design/methodology/approach – Utilizing 628 respondents, a measurement scale is developed and a structural equation model is tested through a
multi-stage series of surveys. The scope of the research is consumer durable products.
Findings – This paper is successful in developing a 43-item scale that measures 15 unique innovation characteristics. This scale is then used to test a
second order model illustrating the relationships innovation characteristics have with each other and ultimately innovation adoption.
Research limitations/implications – The major limitation this research suffers from is its lack of variety in products under analysis. For the four
consumer durable products studied, the research finds significant results. However, these findings would have greater impact if they reflected a broader
array of products and product classes.
Originality/value – To date there have been very few attempts to model and test in an exhaustive fashion the role innovation characteristics play
during the adoption process. This current research advances Holak and Lehmann and empirically tests first and second order characteristics within the
context of a structural equation model.
Keywords Innovation, Scale development, Product characteristics, Adoption, Diffusion, Product development
Paper type Research paper
An executive summary for managers and executive
readers can be found at the end of this article.
1. Introduction
An innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived
to be new by an individual. It does not matter if the
innovation is objectively new measured by a lapse in time, but
rather its perceived newness to the potential adopter (Rogers,
2003, p. 12). In order for consumers to make an adoption
decision they evaluate information about its characteristics.
Historically, these characteristics have included trialability,
compatibility, relative advantage, observability and
complexity (Rogers, 1962), each of which either accelerates
or impedes the diffusion of a new innovation through a
market. More recently, perceived risk has added to the
original five as an important characteristic negatively
associated with innovation adoption (Bauer, 1960; Ostlund,
1974).
Research contributions from disciplines as disparate as
sociology and geography to industrial economics and
consumer behavior have developed different variations off of
these basic innovation characteristics to explore the flow of
information, ideas, practices, products, and services within
and across cultures and markets (Gatignon and Robertson,
1985). For example, Tornatzky and Klein (1982) identify over
thirty different ways to describe an innovation from 75
different sources. A
˚stebro and Michela (2005) employ cluster
analysis to organize 37 criteria used in evaluating firm-level
innovation. There has been significant overlap of terms and
meanings in these studies. As a result, the body of knowledge
focusing on innovation diffusion has lacked cohesion in its
definition of the characteristics that make something
innovative. Our research seeks to synthesize this large body
of literature and, using accepted processes of scale
development, develop a single structure that captures the
most important constructs in the new-product development
and adoption literature. This structure allows the specification
of a model with which to estimate relationships between
innovation characteristics and other aspects of the innovation
adoption and diffusion literature (individual-centered
characteristics, diffusion context, and so on).
In order to specify models or find relationships with
external constructs an innovation must be measured based on
the qualities it is perceived to posses s. Therefore, the
development of a multi-dimensional scale describing the
characteristics of product innovations provides a concrete step
towards Rogers’ call for “analyzing the perceived properties of
innovations and how these properties affect the rate of
adoption [as they] can be valuable in predicting the reactions
of people to an innovation” (Rogers, 2003, p. 219). Prior
research suggests that the adoption of an innovation is
preceded by how an individual perceives an innovation.
Moore and Benbasat (1991) stress the importance of
innovation characteristics by suggesting that individual
behavior is conditioned on how attributes are perceived. As
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1061-0421.htm
Journal of Product & Brand Management
20/5 (2011) 343–355
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited [ISSN 1061-0421]
[DOI 10.1108/10610421111157874]
343
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