Innovation and Networks: Linking Diffusion and Implementation

Abstract

This paper examines the appropriation of IT-based innovations within firms. It argues that such innovations represent a challenge to the tendency in the existing literature towards the analytical separation of diffusion and implementation as distinct theoretical domains. In contrast, this paper develops a more transcendent analysis of such innovations by focusing on the cognitive translations and appropriations which link idea generation, diffusion and implementation. This analysis identifies the processes linking wider inter-organisational diffusion networks and intra-firm distributions of expertise as playing a crucial role in the appropriation of innovation. We refer to these as processes of articulation: a formulation which leads to a reappraisal of the networking activities of boundary-spanning individuals.