The Role of the Organization Structure in the Diffusion of Innovations

Authored by Carlos Saenz-Royo, Carlos Gracia-Lazaro, Yamir Moreno

Date Published: 2015

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0126076

Sponsors: European Union European Social Fund

Platforms: No platforms listed

Model Documentation: Other Narrative Mathematical description

Model Code URLs: Model code not found

Abstract

Diffusion and adoption of innovations is a topic of increasing interest in economics, market research, and sociology. In this paper we investigate, through an agent based model, the dynamics of adoption of innovative proposals in different kinds of structures. We show that community structure plays an important role on the innovation diffusion, so that proposals are more likely to be accepted in homogeneous organizations. In addition, we show that the learning process of innovative technologies enhances their diffusion, thus resulting in an important ingredient when heterogeneous networks are considered. We also show that social pressure blocks the adoption process whatever the structure of the organization. These results may help to understand how different factors influence the diffusion and acceptance of innovative proposals in different communities and organizations.

Tags

Dynamics networks conformity Model Learning-curve