This paper is concerned with the identification of determinants that influence the use of business-to-consumer electronic markets. Since the widespread adoption of the Internet, these electronic markets are now commonplace and it becomes increasingly relevant to identify the factors that influence their usage. This paper first reviews the literature on this topic and addresses the theoretical c...

In this research, the diffusion of innovation regarding smartphone usage is analysed through a consumer behaviour theory. This research aims to determine whether a pattern surrounding the diffusion of innovation exists. As a methodology, an empirical study of the switch from a conventional cell phone to a smartphone was performed. Specifically, a questionnaire survey was completed by general co...

The fear that human creations might backfire and attack their creators has been a mainstay of science fiction at least since Mary Shelley‟s Frankenstein. The misgivings become particularly acute when human-engineered imitations of human beings (i.e., robots and cyborgs) raise questions regarding how humans can be distinguished from machines. Assumptions about gender also infuse the ways humans ...

It is widely believed that major technological innovations inevitably spark speculative fever, resulting in wasteful overinvestment. This paper presents a general equilibrium model of investment in a new industry, whose production function is not known in advance. In the context of the model, overinvestment is actually socially optimal as the most efficient way to learn about the new technology...

Organizational arrangements such as telework are often believed to disrupt workers’ social networks. This raises a concern regarding teleworkers’ abilities to adjust to technological changes in organizations. Based on innovation diffusion theory, this chapter considers telework and interdependence as parallel dimensions of social proximity that may be expected to affect the diffusion of innovat...

This study presents an exploratory approach to identify the main factors of Personal Learning Environment (PLE) adoption and diffusion within commercial organisations. Utilising an inductive investigative approach via the use of Grounded Theory methodology, relevant adoption factors were identified and their resulting influence during various stages of the innovation diffusion process were prop...

The adoption of innovations based on information and communications technologies (ICT) produces three types of transformations in companies. First off, ICTs can reduce transaction costs, which include those of coordination, information, motivation, control and supervision. Technological innovations can also contribute to the development of new capabilities within the company. Furthermore, ICT-b...

This article is devoted to an analysis of cyber security, a concept that arrived on the post-Cold War agenda in response to a mixture of technological innovations and changing geopolitical conditions. Adopting the framework of securitization theory, the article theorizes cyber security as a distinct sector with a particular constellation of threats and referent objects. It is held that ‘‘networ...

Recent studies have cast doubt on the dominant role of social contagion in new product diffusion. We critically re-assess what is considered the best evidence of social contagion in the diffusion literature: the Medical Innovation study by Coleman, Katz and Menzel(1966) on the diffusion of the antibiotic tetracycline in the mid 1950s. A descriptive analysis of the tetracycline market indicates ...