DETERMINANTS IN THE ADOPTION OF THE IDEA COMPONENT OF AN INNOVATION: IDENTIFYING SYMBOLIC ADOPTERS OF THE HOME VIDEO ORDERING SYSTEM (DIFFUSION, DISCRIMINANT)

                         FIELDS, DAVID MICHAEL; PHD

                         UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS, 1986
 
                         BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION, MARKETING (0338)
 

                         The focus of this dissertation was the study of the adoption decision associated with acceptance of the
                         symbolic character of a largely unmarketed technological innovation. In this context, the familiar adoption
                         process (i.e., awareness - information - evaluation - trial - adoption) must be viewed as two separate
                         phases. The first phase would take the adopting unit through the evaluation stage, at which point a
                         decision to symbolically adopt or reject the idea associated with the innovation would be made. Symbolic
                         adopters would move to the second phase which includes the trial and adoption stages. The objective of
                         this study was to: Determine whether significant differences exist and can be identified for symbolic
                         adopters and symbolic rejectors of the idea component for a specific innovation (i.e., home video
                         ordering). Diffusion literature has identified a series of measures that differentiate between adopter
                         groups at the final level of adoption. Six of the variables, some with multiple measurements, were
                         examined to determine the extent of their value in differentiating at the symbolic level. The variables
                         were: (1) Demographics; (2) Characteristics of Innovations, (a) relative advantage, (b) compatibility, (c)
                         complexity, (d) trialability, (e) observability; (3) Perceived Risk; (4) Perceived Need; (5) Personality
                         Variables; (a) dogmatism, (b) social character, (c) venturesomeness; (6) Social Interaction, (a) social
                         integration, (b) cosmopoliteness, (c) opinion leadership. Hypotheses were developed for each of the six
                         variables. Symbolic adopters and symbolic rejectors were identified as the upper and lower quartiles on
                         the spectrum developed by a three-item symbolic adoption measure. The hypotheses were tested with
                         cross classification and discriminant analysis methodologies. Results indicated each of the six
                         hypotheses should be rejected, indicating differences between the two groups. The final discriminant
                         function demonstrated an accuracy rate of 97.6 percent. The same function was applied to a hold-out
                         sample for validation purposes. The original function correctly classified 96.6 of the adopter classes in
                         the hold-out sample.

 


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