INFORMATION DIFFUSION IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF INNOVATION PROCESS

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Abstract
The present study proposes a theoretical model depicting information diffusion within work organizations. Express concern is with this diffusion as it relates to organizational innovation. This model conceptualizes information flow as having two important dimensions: origin of the information, viewed as having three foci (organizational, interpersonal, and personal); and organizational emphasis on innovation, viewed as having two levels (general organizational emphasis on innovation and specific organizational emphasis on a given innovation). This multilevel model was tested with a random sample of 2083 work supervisors in 96 different organizations. The dependent variable employed was the supervisor's compliance in transmitting information about the innovation to subordinates. Multivariate analysis illustrates the importance of three factors upon this transmission: the degree of specific innovation emphasis, the number of modalities used to transmit this information, and the degree to which the supervisor individually sought out information about the innovation.