Support Strategies to Foster Adoption of Interorganizational Innovations

Abstract

The authors develop strategies that suppliers can use to foster the adoption of interorganizational information systems innovations, The strategies focus on adoption support to overcome innovation adoption barriers, accounting for the effect of the innovation on ongoing supplier-customer transactions. Modeling a dimension of the customer (organizational innovativeness) and a dimension of the innovation (radicalness) they derive optimal supplier strategies for when the supplier can differentiate individual customer innovativeness and when it cannot. In the former case, knowledge of individual customer innovativeness results in a triage model-some customers adopt without support, some require support to adopt, and some do not adopt and should not be supported. A lack of knowledge of customer innovativeness results in an undifferentiated strategy directed at all customers. Knowledge of customer innovativeness increases overall adoption and supplier profits and lowers adoption support to those customers that receive support in both cases