Knowledge that Transforms

Researchers and decision-makers have shown considerable interest in the determinants of adoption of technological innovation in medicine by doctors and other health professionals. At the same time, comparatively little attention has been paid to the abandonment of technology. Our approach was to study the pattern of decline of drugs introduced to market following the 1962 amendments to the federal Food and Drug Act. On a sample of eight pharmaceuticals that met the criteria, we considered whether or not the pattern of abandonment observed in available time series data suggested support for a chain-reaction type of diffusion process via opinion leaders, and failed to find such support. We believe that abandonment behavior by physicians must sometimes be affected directly by external information stimuli without the need for processing by an intermediary opinion leader.

The flow of technological information, in particular the type of sources and transfer channels for technological information has been a focus of research interest since the very first studies concerning management of research and development. However, the results of these empirical studies, although encouraging and useful to managers, leave several questions unanswered, and even worse, contain some contradictions. In this paper we will try to explain some of these contradictions using the technology characteristics as an contingency factor. The model, which we will present has been tested in a twofold way: questionnaires were used to provide insight into the importance of some sources, while interviews on the basis of standardized problems led us to a better insight into sources and channels.

This paper considers two aspects of technical change in the ceramic tile industry in Italy: firstly, the process of invention, adoption and diffusion of new techniques in the industry; secondly, the impact of forces of a technical nature in shaping the industrial structure. The process of technical change is examined in the light of the interrelationships between firms and their proximity. These are crucial elements characterizing an “industrial district”, whose boundaries go beyond the industry defined on a product basis. The industrial district is adopted as unit of analysis of the process of technical change. Moreover, economic, social and institutional features are considered. In this context the historical developments of new techniques are discussed in terms of the constraints to the established position of the firm at a particular time. Among the determinants of the ceramic tile industrial structure, economies of scale have had a minor role. The pattern of vertical disintegration we observe in the industry is - instead - closely related to the technical developments in the industry through the effects of technical change on the product and process specialization of the production units operating in the industrial district.