A Measure of Innovativeness for a Sample of Firms in the Wood Household Furniture Industry

Abstract

Characterizing innovators and early adopters of technological innovations can benefit promoters of new technologies. Marketing researchers have found correlates between characteristics of adopters and the time of adoption which have been helpful in identifying those firms most likely to adopt and targeting them with the appropriate marketing mix. Firms in the wood household furniture industry were segmented based on their adoption of 13 processing technologies into an innovator group and a noninnovator group. These groups were contrasted on a variety of characteristics. Innovators were found to differ significantly from noninnovators in firm size, technological expertise, technological progressiveness, opinion leadership, information sources, and cosmopolitanism of the decision-making group. This information can be used by equipment suppliers, government agencies, and the furniture industry itself to encourage adoption of new processing technologies. For. Sci. 38(3):509-524.