Complex Innovations and Transnational Diffusion: Why the Nature of Innovations Matters

• In Event: 2460 - Globalization

Abstract

Most research on global diffusion looks at how individual innovations spread at any given time. While this approach can tell us how actors, networks, and environmental contexts shape the diffusion process, it cannot tell us how different types of innovations spread in different ways. Specifically, it cannot tell us how an innovation’s complexity affects its movement. In this paper, we compare three innovations – norms/policies (child labor standards), technology (Project ECHO), and educational media (Sesame Street) – and propose a typology of innovation complexity. We argue that an innovation’s complexity – codified or tacit – shapes the way originators and their local partners work together to adapt it. Different types of complexity require different types of localization strategies. But when actors disagree on an innovation’s complexity the negotiation can break down and diffusion can fail.

Authors

• Tamara Kay, University of Notre Dame

• Isabel Jijon, Princeton University