Search results

This study aims to examine how the theory of planned behaviour and technology acceptance theory can be used to understand the adoption of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs). The relationships between attitudes, behavioural intentions towards using NPIs, actual use of NPIs and word-of-mouth (WOM) were examined and compared between early and late adopters.

A survey was conducted to test the hypotheses with partial least squares structural equation modelling (n = 278).

The results indicate that relationships between attitudes, intentions and behavioural intentions were positive and significant in the whole data set – and that there were differences between the early and late adopters. WOM had no substantial relationship with actual usage and early adopters’ behavioural intentions.

This research gives a better sense of how WOM impacts attitudes, behavioural intentions and actual usage among early and late adopters of NPIs and highlights the effectiveness of WOM, especially among late adopters of NPIs. Furthermore, using the TAM allows us to make specific recommendations regarding encouraging the use of NPIs. A new three-stage communications model is introduced that uses early adopters as influencers to reduce the NPI adoption time by late adopters.

This study aims to investigate how early and late adopters of Quality 4.0 (Q4.0) differ in terms of organizational performance.

The authors employed a grounded theory approach for interviewing 15 senior managers from diverse organizational contexts throughout the globe as part of their qualitative research methodology.

The research's findings were analyzed based on four types of performance: operational, financial, environmental and social. It was clear that early adopters of Q4.0 were sustaining superior performance in quality over time, even though their investment was significantly higher than that of late adopters. From a financial viewpoint, it was evident that early adopters had a competitive edge over their rivals compared to late adopters. Late adopters have utilized the notion of the circular economy (CE) more effectively than many early adopters in the context of environmental performance in order to establish a green economy and sustainable development.

Although the results of the interview indicate that Q4.0 is having some positive effects on social performance, in the authors' view, it is still least understood from an empirical standpoint.

The study's findings assist organizations in comprehending the performance differences between Q4.0 early adopters and late adopters.

Industry 4.0 is a new trend among organizations. Some organizations have been early adopters or later adopters of Industry 4.0. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how performance effects vary between early and late adopters of Industry 4.0.

This study applies a qualitative research methodology using grounded theory. 14 senior management professionals who have implemented Industry 4.0 participated in this study through a theoretical and snowball sampling approach. These professionals were from manufacturing and service sectors, from North America, Europe and Asia. The study used semi structured open-ended interviews to capture the organizational performance on operational, financial, environmental and social dimensions.

The findings were analyzed in terms of four broad themes which emerged from the interviews. In operational performance the operational and implementation cost will be higher for early adopters. The late adopters may enjoy the advantage in terms of improved business models. In terms of financial performance, the early adopters may see a marginal increase in profit and increased stock price compared to late adopters. The performance on the environmental dimension will see early adopters enjoying material efficiency, energy savings and an improved image of the company compared to late adopters. In social performance, the early adopters will provide a better quality of work life, safer manufacturing environment. However, the resistance from labor unions will be higher for early adopters compared to late adopters.

Organizations must decide the timing of implementation of Industry 4.0. This study will act as a guide wherein they can decide to be an early adopter or late adopter based on knowledge of the resulting performance consequences.

This is the first paper that studies the performance effects of early versus late adopters of Industry 4.0.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the long-term performance of firms that early adopted Statement of Financial Accounting Standard 142 (SFAS 142).

In particular, the paper focuses on a relatively lengthy time frame after the standard became effective in 2002 and examines whether the firms which early adopted SFAS 142 exhibit different characteristics from their non-early adopting counterparts when comparing operating returns, stock returns and earnings quality over the same time period. Profit margin, return on assets and return on equity are used to measure operating returns; buy-and-hold return, Tobin’s Q and price-to-book ratio are used to measure stock returns; and abnormal accruals and accruals quality are used to measure earnings quality.

Based on a sample of 692 firm-year observations over five years between 2002 and 2006, the authors find that early adopters tend to exhibit lower operating performance (most noticeable when measuring profit margin and return on assets) and lower earnings quality following the early adoption of SFAS 142 than non-early adopters. However, little relation is found between post-adoption market returns and the choice to early adopt SFAS 142.

This study helps fill the gap in accounting literature by investigating the long-term performance of firms post adoption of SFAS 142. The empirical results may provide greater understanding of the firms choosing to early adopt SFAS 142, and offer additional insight to guide standard setters on similar accounting issues in the future.

This study’s research questions attempt to identify potential differences in operating and stock performance and earnings quality by comparing early adopters and non-early adopters of SFAS 142 over a five-year period between 2002 and 2006, which extends the research beyond the relatively short window covered by prior research, and also takes into consideration Statement of Financial Accounting Standard 141 (SFAS 141)-R “Business Combination”, issued in 2007, to supersede SFAS 141 of 2001.

Development of new products is important for firm success; however, firms often struggle to identify the best ideas from multiple options. The purpose of this paper is to study how innovators and early adopters can be used for identifying the best ideas, i.e. the ideas that appeal to mass-market customers.

Two empirical studies were conducted. Study 1 concerned the development of a symbolic innovation, whereas Study 2 focused on a functional innovation. Each study consisted of two parts: idea generation and idea evaluation. In Study 1 there were 124 idea generators and 248 idea evaluators. In Study 2 there were 104 idea generators and 108 evaluators.

Both studies demonstrate that innovators and early adopters are able to predict the ideas that appeal to mass-market customers. Yet, it was also shown that this prediction depends on the nature of the idea. In the case of ideas for products that are predominantly symbolic in nature (Study 1), innovators and early adopters predict the buying intentions of mass-market consumers via the perceived novelty of the idea. In turn, for ideas that are predominantly functional in nature, innovators and early adopters predict the buying intentions of mass-market consumers directly via buying intentions.

These findings show that innovators and early adopters can be used for selecting the best ideas from a plethora of available options. This is the first time that innovators and early adopters have been empirically demonstrated to hold such a role.

This study aims to examine whether the impact of international financial reporting standards (IFRS) on audit fees differs between early and late adopters.

The authors use robust econometric estimation on a sample of 314 firms from both early and late IFRS adopting countries.

The authors find that IFRS is positively and significantly associated with an increase in audit fees for early adopters, but the impact is very weak for late adopters and insignificant in some cases. The results on auditing time suggest that increase in audit fees around IFRS adoption is due to an increase in audit reporting lags. After accounting for pre- and post-years, the authors find that the relationship between IFRS and audit fees, as well as audit time for late adopters, is significant only in the adoption year. However, early adopters experience a significant increase in audit fees and audit time in the transition year to one-year post-adoption.

The findings imply that countries that are yet to adopt IFRS are less likely to experience a significant increase in audit fees audit time. Hence, is probable that the benefit of IFRS will outweigh the cost.

The results, therefore, suggest that early adopters paid a premium for been the first users of IFRS, which is consistent with any innovation. The study provides new insights by demonstrating that the consequences of IFRS differ between early and late adopters.

This paper aims to provide a social network site influence (SNSI) profile of early adopters. This study explores the relationship between personality traits of early adopters of social network sites (SNS), their propensity to share information and rumors and their general SNSI.

An online survey was sent to the first users of Twitter (n = 200) and Google+ (n = 130) to assess their personality traits. Answers of each respondent were matched to their SNSI scores from Klout and PeerIndex, the industry standard for measuring SNSI.

Early adopters of SNS, in comparison to market mavens, are more likely to exert influence on one particular topic related to their profession: technology and the internet. Their levels of extraversion, openness and conscientiousness have a positive and significant impact on information sharing, and a negative impact on rumor sharing. Both, information sharing and rumor sharing have a positive and significant impact on the general SNSI of early adopters.

Firms struggle to decide whether to invest early in the life of newly created SNS as they are unsure about the characteristics of early adopters of such networks, and, more importantly, whether these sites are effective initial vectors for word-of-mouth. The findings demonstrate that early adopters’ influence (SNSI score) is on par with that of the rest of SNS users, suggesting their influence may be somewhat limited. The study also shows that the opinion leadership impact of the more influential early adopters is monomorphic in nature, being mainly confined to the related technology and internet domains.

The purpose of this paper is to bring new empirical evidence to the controversial role of early adopters in the diffusion of innovations in industrial markets.

The authors apply an actor market configuration perspective to the analysis of four longitudinal case studies regarding the commercialization of new products in the textile, plastic and energy industries.

The diffusion of innovation is an interactive and iterative process where the commercializing firm engages in repeated interactions with different categories of companies that are targeted as potential early adopters. This process ends when the commercializing firm identifies a category of early adopters that can stimulate subsequent acceptance in the later market, by playing one of the following two roles, i.e. word-of-mouth trigger and industry benchmark. During this process, through which the role of the early adopters is constructed proactively by the commercializing firm, the product innovation is also subject to changes to provide a better fit with the selected category of early adopters.

The paper calls for a re-conceptualization of the diffusion process, from a passive identification of early adopters to an interactive process that entails a trial-and-error approach in the targeting and involvement of different categories of early adopters, which ends when the innovation reaches the desired levels of diffusion.

The study provides managers with a number of recommendations for selecting the most proper category of early adopters for their innovations, depending on the role they are more likely to play and the influence they will exert on subsequent acceptance in the later market.

The study provides managers with a number of recommendations for targeting, through a trial-and-error process, early adopters and working with them to champion the dissemination of new technologies.

This paper significantly adds to existing literature on the diffusion of innovation, which has up to now conceived early adopters as static and given entities, which cannot be proactively selected by the commercializing firm, and innovation as an immutable object.

To investigate the diffusion of online reverse auctions by exploring differences between their early, late and lagging adopters. More specifically, adopter categories are compared against organizational characteristics and auction behavior as a result of learning. Organizational characteristics include number of employees and purchasing authority structure (PAS). Differences in learning are investigated by behavioral manifestations, consisting of the savings achieved, as well as the use of bundles in reverse auctions.

Four hypotheses were developed based on academic and trade literature. Data were collected with a large‐scale online survey among members of the Institute for Supply Management, receiving 363 complete and useable responses. Records were split into three adopter categories based on whether the respondent's firm adopted reverse auctions early (before April 2002) or late (after April 2002), or whether the adoption was merely planned. Differences related to the time of adoption were explored via nonparametric χ² contingency table analyses. The χ² statistic was used to determine whether a hypothesis is supported or rejected.

Adopter categories differ in regards to number of employees, the savings achieved, and their use of bundles. No differences were detected in terms of PAS. Explanations for these findings are provided.

The results support the diffusion of online reverse auctions, provide encouragement for their adoption especially also by smaller firms, and suggest that late adopters are not disadvantaged when compared to their early‐adopting counterparts.

No published studies have investigated the diffusion of online reverse auctions for business‐to‐business procurement, or explored potential differences between early adopters, late adopters and laggards.

The purposes of this research were to compare the attitudes about new food purchases between innovators/early adopters and non‐innovators, and to determine the food purchase characteristics of innovators/early adopters and non‐innovators. Data were collected in ten locations in India between November 1999 and February 2000. Including income as a covariate, MANCOVA was performed to determine how innovators/early adopters and non‐innovators differed in their attitudes about new food purchases. The findings revealed some important characteristics of food innovators/early adopters: they tend to be opinion leaders, seek variety in food types and brands, and are more responsive to sales promotions and advertisements. Food prices are relatively important to both consumer groups. Marketing implications for food businesses are discussed.