Achieving IT diffusion within the fragments: an IT culture perspective

Many organizations still fail to make a return from the huge investments they make in implementing complex Information Technology (IT). This is usually due to cultural forces that inhibit the level of usage required to facilitate IT Diffusion. An emerging stream of research highlights the IT culture perspective, a perspective vital for understanding individuals’ social practices when they interact with IT. This paper adopted a case study approach to explore how the IT culture perspective may explain how organizational diffusion of an IT may happen despite opposing cultural forces causing a stalemate to the diffusion process. This study identified three IT culture archetypes - embracing, rejecting and confused, depicting a fragmented IT culture during the adaption, acceptance and routinization stages of diffusion of an IT. This study highlights how a salient element of a fragmented IT culture-embracing IT culture archetype could explain how diffusion of an IT happened despite the manifestations of negative IT culture archetypes - ‘confused’ and ‘rejecting’ during the diffusion process

First Looks: CATaC '98\ud

The First International Conference on Cultural Attitudes Towards Technology and Communication (CATaC’98), and its affiliated publications, seek to bring together current insights from philosophy, communication theory, and cultural sciences in an interdisciplinary dialogue. The synthesis of disparate scholarly ideas will shed greater light on just how culture impacts on the use and appropriation of new communications technologies. Beyond the individual contributions themselves, some of our most significant insights will emerge as we listen and discuss carefully with one another during the conference itself. As a way of preparing for that discussion, I offer the following overview of the CATaC papers and abstracts, along with a summary of the insights and questions they suggest

How culture affects ICT diffusion among SMEs in Bangladesh

Culture is a broad spectrum of behavioural study which has been illuminated differently in different literature. Applying four cultural dimensions, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, in-group collectivism, and Bengali value, with the two fundamental antecedents of TAM, perceived usefulness and ease of use, this study attempts to look at the effects of culture in ICT diffusion among SMEs in Bangladesh. This study applies a mixed method of research approach. Following an in-depth field study which is analysed through NVivo version 9, a descriptive research design is administered to ascertain the joint impact of the study constructs. Structural equation modelling through PLS graph has been used with a cross-sectional dataset of 51 SMEs in Bangladesh collected through a questionnaire survey. The proposed model was assessed with two step procedure of measuring latent variables structural association. Prior to estimating the structural model, psychometric properties of the model, convergent and discriminant validity, were assessed. The structural model estimation results reveal a significant association of power distance and perceived ease of use with SMEs intention to use ICT. The path analysis furthered a significant effect of intention on actual ICT usage behaviour. The study concludes with implications

A New Consumerism: The influence of social technologies on product design

Social media has enabled a new style of consumerism. Consumers are no longer passive recipients; instead they are assuming active and participatory roles in product design and production, facilitated by interaction and collaboration in virtual communities. This new participatory culture is blurring the boundaries between the specific roles of designer, consumer and producer, creating entrepreneurial opportunities for designers, and empowering consumers to influence product strategies. Evolving designer-consumer interactions are enabling an enhanced model of co-production, through a value-adding social exchange that is driving changes in consumer behaviour and influencing both product strategies and design practice. The consumer is now a knowledgeable participant, or prosumer, who can contribute to user–centered research through crowd sourcing, collaborate and co-create through open-source or open-innovation platforms, assist creative endeavors by pledging venture capital through crowd funding and advocate the product in blogs and forums. Social media- enabled product implementation strategies working in conjunction with digital production technologies (e.g. additive manufacture), enable consumer-directed adaptive customisation, product personalisation, and self-production, with once passive consumers becoming product produsers. Not only is social media driving unprecedented consumer engagement and significant behavioural change, it is emerging as a major enabler of design entrepreneurship, creating new collaborative opportunities. Innovative processes in design practice are emerging, such as the provision of digital artifacts and customisable product frameworks, rather than standardised manufactured solutions. This paper examines the influence of social media-enabled product strategies on the methodology of the next generation of product designers, and discusses the need for an educational response

Critical factors for implementing and diffusing sustainable Product-Service Systems: Insights from innovation studies and companies' experiences

This is the post-print version of the final paper published in Journal for Cleaner Production. The published article is available from the link below. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. Copyright @ 2012 Elsevier B.V.Eco-efficient Product-Service System (PSS) innovations represent a promising approach to sustainability. However the adoption of such business strategies is still very limited because it often involves significant corporate, cultural and regulatory barriers. An important challenge is not only to conceive eco-efficient PSS concepts, but also to understand the contextual conditions that facilitate their societal embedding, and which strategies and development pathways are the most appropriate. The combination of theoretical insights from innovation studies (in particular Strategic Niche Management and Transition Management) and a case studies research (exploring the innovation journeys made by six companies in introducing their eco-efficient PSS innovations in the market) is used to investigate the factors that influence the implementation and diffusion of this kind of innovations. The article provides a structured overview of these factors, grouping them in four clusters: implementation of socio-technical experiments; establishment of a broad network of actors; building up of a shared project vision; creation of room for broad and reflexive learning processes. Based on these results it is argued that a broader and more strategic system approach should be adopted by companies. Companies should focus not only on the PSS solution and its value chain, but also on the contextual conditions that may favour or hinder the societal embedding of the PSS itself. The article concludes by outlining a key area for future research

A dual flow bioreactor with controlled mechanical stimulation for cartilage tissue engineering

In cartilage tissue engineering bioreactors can create a controlled environment to study chondrocyte behavior under mechanical stimulation or produce chondrogenic grafts of clinically relevant size. Here we present a novel bioreactor, which combines mechanical stimulation with a two compartment system through which nutrients can be supplied solely by diffusion from opposite sides of a tissue engineered construct. This design is based on the hypothesis that creating gradients of nutrients, growth factors and growth factor antagonists can aid in the generation of zonal tissue engineered cartilage. Computational modeling predicted that the design facilitates the creation of a biologically relevant glucose gradient. This was confirmed by quantitative glucose measurements in cartilage explants. In this system it is not only possible to create gradients of nutrients, but also of anabolic or catabolic factors. Therefore, the bioreactor design allows control over nutrient supply and mechanical stimulation useful for in vitro generation of cartilage constructs that can be used for the resurfacing of articulated joints or as a model for studying OA disease progression

Cross-cultural influence on diffusion and adoption of innovation: An exploratory case study to investigate the social-cultural barriers

The development of science and technology increasing rapidly; in many cases advantageous innovations find obstacles for their establishment and in some others they simply fail. The authors of this paper demonstrate that the reason this may happen, is not depended only form the innovation itself; but the socio cultural aspects plays a fundamental role for the diffusion and the adoption of innovation. A number of studies have dealt with the diffusion and the adoption of innovation but limited research has been done about how socio cultural aspects can influence the diffusion and the adoption of innovation. Therefore this research aims to investigate how socio cultural aspects can act like a barrier for the diffusion and the adoption of innovations in different nations. Furthermore, this research will look into the reasons why innovations not readily spread, even if backed by strong market research as well as, the fundamental reason of why some innovations succeed and some others not? The research study will be based on a normative literature review of the important parts of the theory (outline network and socio cultural theories in cross-cultural studies); then the author will construct the conceptual model which will be tested using a qualitative research approach. This is a research in progress paper and the authors will design a comparative multiple case study to test the phenomena in three different nations, namely England, Greece and Italy