Page 107 - Culture Technology Communication

92 Carleen F. Maitland and Johannes M. Bauer

studied. In their study of the global diffusion of cellular telecommu-
nications, they include a social system variable and social hetero-
geneity, measured as the number of ethnic groups in a country.
Heterogeneity of ethnic groups relates to society-wide communica-
tion and hence the use of mobile telephones. This variable was
shown to have a significant impact on a country’s adoption timing.
In a similar manner, the case study presented in this research
will use both cultural variables related to general innovative ca-
pacity (uncertainty avoidance) and those with specific implications
for Internet diffusion (English language ability). Other national
level cultural characteristics that may have implications for Inter-
net diffusion include the communication patterns (near/distant),
relative roles of work and family, perceptions of the role of technol-
ogy in home life, and shopping behaviors. In general, measures of
these innovation specific cultural characteristics will be more diffi-
cult to find. However, diffusion researchers should attempt to use
both general and innovation specific cultural characteristics in
their research.

Diffusion

Diffusion of Innovations theory as presented by Rogers (1995a) pro-
poses rates of adoption can be explained by five categories of vari-
ables: (1) perceived attributes of the innovation; (2) type of
innovation decision; (3) communication channels; (4) nature of the
social system; and (5) extent of change agents’ efforts. Within each
category a wide range of variables exists, and their level of analysis
varies from individual (such as all of the “perceived attributes” vari-
ables) to system level variables (such as those in the “nature of the
social system” category). These variables can be used to compare dif-
fusion of different innovations and to compare the rate of diffusion of
an innovation among communities with different economic, demo-
graphic, and cultural characteristics. Both within and among the
five general categories of explanatory factors, there is overlap. The
categories are not mutually exclusive and the question of which cat-
egory a particular variable belongs to is sometimes open to interpre-
tation. Culture plays either an implicit or an explicit role in each of
these five categories of variables. 7
Traditional diffusion studies relied heavily on the notion of “per-
ceived attributes” of an innovation. Although the potential adopter’s
perceptions of the innovation are important, objective characteristics
also play a role (Lin and Zaltman 1973). Network-based and inter-