Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Diffusion
- Definition
- Understood as the subsequent adoption and spread of the innovation as a product.
- One mechanism for diffusion would be adoption of the innovation by
consmers of that innovation
- Reasons for diffusion
- A product would be diffused if there was a clear indicator
that it would reduce the cost of human labour, or speed up
the process in which a task can be completed.
- Adoption could be motivated in a market economy, by reduced
costs for similar products or processes
- Enhancement of human capacities, as a result
- Problems with adopting at the diffusion stage
- (Marx, 1976, p.530) identifies that when a product “…comes into general use”
the “surplus-value does not arise from the labour-power that has been replaced”
but the true competitive advantage comes from “the labour-power actually
employed” in using the technology in a more efficient and effective way
compared to their competitors.
- Not the word processor, but the people using the processor make the difference.
- Simply owning the product does not give the user a competitive
advantage, but through the way that it is utilised.
- Example
- As the smartphone diffused, it was not enough to
just own the smartphone to achieve a competitive
advantage, the surplus-value had to come from the
way the user utilised the technology in an efficient
and effective manner to gain a true competitive
advantage.
- Successful
- The time from innovation to diffusion for the smartphone was
substantially shorter than the original mobile phone, as the technology,
mobile network infrastructure and the demand for such a device already
existed and this led to the highly successful diffusion of the smartphone
which is still ongoing today.
- Reinvention
- The invention of "uses of technologies" not anticipated
by designers, have often been central to the vitality of a
technology's development
- Ship radio not initally intended for music and talk shows
- Positive effects of diffusion of information technologies
- Technological processes substituting for direct human mental labour
- Substitution of fixed capital (machinery) for labour
- Greater efficiency in production and enhanced capacities
- Enhancement of human labour
- Labour saving costs
- Communal, not universal, labour is invested in the diffusion of
innovations, by purchase or other forms of adoption