The role of the organization structure in the diffusion of innovations

PLoS One. 2015 May 15;10(5):e0126076. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0126076. eCollection 2015.

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.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Diffusion of Innovation*
  • Humans
  • Models, Theoretical

Grants and funding

The authors acknowledge financial support from EU FET project MULTIPLEX (grant 317614), from Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (research projects FIS2012-38266-C02-01 and ECO2013-48496-C4-3-R), from Diputación General de Aragón (grupos CREVALOR, FENOL) and from the European Social Fund (CREVALOR). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.