A central problem faced by today's management is how best to diffuse new ideas, processes and technologies across a global enterprise given the dynamic, emergent, and elusive character of its communication networks. Executives recognize these needs. A critical factor in organizational competitiveness has become the speed at which innovations can be implemented. While fostering good ideas and producing innovation is central to business success, the speed of execution in today's organizations has become the differentiating factor that provides competitive advantage and is far from assured, as the Gartner Group has observed. Innovations gain their greatest value when they are actually used. Researchers in information systems in particular, have begun to recognize the importance of better alignment between information technology infrastructure and business systems. IT professionals are also recognizing the utility of diffusion of innovation theory to study implementation problems. However, despite the ubiquity and sophistication of IT, organizations have not taken advantage of the capabilities inherent in the information system itself as a method to manage implementation in diffusion networks. The primary objective of this study is to develop and test diffusion theories in IT-driven global organizations by collecting data which flows through a company's information technology infrastructure to study innovations of different kinds and to display diffusion patterns and networks dynamically in a "digital diffusion dashboard". Data on the innovations will be collected through automated electronic means, for example, through log files of who visits Web sites and what links they click on at what times. The innovations themselves involve a traceable electronic trail. For example, an innovation may be a new software tool allowing the placement of a "tag" within the tool for electronic tracking to determine when the tool is adopted and by whom. The research will be conducted by an interdisciplinary team of scholars in business anthropology, communication, adult education and engineering in partnership with information technology professionals from three major global corporations in the automotive industry: Ford Motor Company, General Motors Corporation, and DaimlerChrysler Corporation that serve as the research sites for this study. The Automotive Industry Action Group will help disseminate widely the findings and deliverables from this study. The IBM Corporation, as a partner in the study, will provide both IT and research expertise.
Intellectual Merit: The proposed research will accelerate theoretical progress in the study of diffusion of innovations in global networked organizations by: 1) developing a digital diffusion database of a range of innovations (30 - 60) across three organizations, 2) modeling each diffusion curve with statistical estimation techniques and clustering these curves to identify types of innovation diffusion patterns, 3) correlating characteristics of the innovations, communication about them, and communication network variables with the diffusion curve types, and 4) developing generalizations about diffusion in IT-based environments that can stimulate theory and lead to future hypotheses testing. The research is an integrative effort that advances dynamic multilevel modeling of diffusion patterns and social networks as they co-evolve over time. The research opens new frontiers in our understanding of the relationship between technology and the human and social dynamics of change.
Broader Impacts: The study will advance the practice of organizational change and help accelerate the diffusion of innovations by investigating, documenting and validating a new methodology using existing information technology network infrastructure, and by developing techniques to dynamically plan, monitor and manage the diffusion of innovations and organizational change in real time. Simple, clear and reusable indicators for a "digital diffusion dashboard" will open a new frontier for both scholars and practitioners alike. Researchers and managers will be able to leverage a company's data resources and visually monitor the diffusion network as it emerges as well as to monitor the consequences of implementation efforts during the diffusion process. While the "dashboard" tools will be developed in the context of the automobile industry, it will have wide applicability and benefit in many other public and private sectors, such as healthcare, retail, government and technology.
