Want to Ensure Technology Diffusion in Global Markets? Consider Cross-National Context

This content relates to : EMERGING ECONOMY – INDIA

Alladi Venkatesh

University of California Irvine

Although there is growing interest in understanding technology diffusion in a global context, extant research focuses primarily on the act of technology adoption. But adopting  a new technology does not necessarily manifest into usage. Thus, post-adoption usage is necessary for the diffusion process to be considered complete. Against this background, the authors propose and test a model of “dynamic use diffusion” in households across three countries: the United States, Sweden, and India. Dynamic use diffusion denotes the extent to which technology usage evolves since its adoption by a household. For example, a person may purchase a new tablet to communicate with their children but over time the tablet may also be used for playing games and accessing social media.

The authors posit and find that in-home and external communications lead to higher dynamic use diffusion as does access to complementary technologies and use innovativeness. They also hypothesize that the outcomes of higher dynamic use diffusion across global markets will vary with national culture. Although the term “culture” is difficult to define, it is commonly regarded as the ways in which people act out their daily lives and experiences. Thus, different cultures may view technology differently. In egalitarian cultures like the United States and Sweden, technology is viewed as an indispensable part of living. The more technology that is introduced, the more essential it is deemed and the less it can be set aside. In India, which has a somewhat rigid class system, technology is viewed as a symbol of status. The newer the technology, the higher the social class a user is deemed to belong to. 

Not surprisingly, the authors observed a stronger positive effect of dynamic use diffusion in India. Further, they found a stronger relationship between social status outcome of technology and satisfaction with the technology in India. Collectively, these results have important implications for marketing communications in an emerging economy like India, i.e., emphasizing how use of a technology can make users stand out can facilitate successful diffusion.      

Author:

Alladi Venkatesh ’77 (Ph.D.)

Professor (emeritus) of Marketing, The Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine

https://merage.uci.edu/research-faculty/faculty-directory/Alladi-Venkatesh.html

To learn more, read: 

Shih, Eric, Alladi Venkatesh, Steven Chen, and Eric Kruse (2012), “Dynamic Use Diffusion Model in a Cross-National Context: A Comparative Study of the United States, Sweden, and India,” Journal of Product Innovation Management, 30 (1), 4-16.