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Research on the diffusion of innovation has postulated three empirical regularities-the S-curve for diffusion in a temporal context, the neighborhood effect for diffusion in a spatial context, arid the hierarchy or short circuit effect for diffusion in the context of a central place system. This paper reviews the evidence for each regularity, considers the consistency of each, and presents an explanation for these regularities taken together that appears more useful for future research than previously posited explanations. Our paradigm focuses upon 1) the distinction between innovation diffusion agencies and adopters themselves, 2) the relationship between the marketing surface viewed by diffusion agencies and the resistance surface offered by potential adopters, and 3) the sequence of communication systems associated with different stages of the diffusion process. By focusing upon behavioral aspects of diffusion rather than upon rigidly defined structural aspects, the consistency of each regularity with others, and deviations from a given regularity for a particular situation, may be reconciled with theory. The empirical regularities are but one possible outcome of behavioral events associated with diffusion of innovation, and in future diffusion research more attention should be given to behavioral events and their characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses a variety of methods-reactive and unobtrusive--to operationalize the filtering of information during an innovative decision process by a gatekeeper. Specific data are presented on gatekeeping within the focal organization and also between the focal organization and other organizations in its organization set. Theoretically, the paper explores the increased possibilities for filtering information under the uncertain conditions of an innovative decision. Power is discussed both in terms of the resources which form the base of an actor's power and also the tactics of resource use. The focus on decision making as a political process provides an emphasis lacking in current organizational studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to establish that three distinct types of intellectual innovation have been accompanied by, and partly produced by, social processes set in motion by over-production of personnel. Over-production occurs when there is a rapid growth in the number of persons qualified to occupy positions involving expertise, without a corresponding increase in the number of positions available. It generates competition among eligible persons for scarce rewards, which, in turn leads them to seek new audiences for their special services and new sources of economic support. Those experts engaged in competition tend to select and emphasize ideas and techniques which improve their Own career opportunities. As a result, competition promotes intellectual innovation. It is argued that over-production, accompanied by competition for scarce rewards, has been partly responsible for religious innovation in North African Islam, artistic change in nineteenth century French painting, and intellectual development in modem science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the range of samples used in recent English and American surveys and proposes an alternative to traditional techniques of sampling and significance testing which, it is suggested, may result in substantial savings in time and research resources. Three distinct applications of sequential sampling tests are illustrated by data derived from the Hull Family Survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports that the villages of Stams, Mötz, Silz, and Haiming, located between twenty-two to thirty miles west of Innsbruck, in an agricultural region of the Austrian Tyrol, constitute an area that has aroused great interest as a pilot project in co-operative planning and development. But little affected by the Industrial Revolution, bound by economic patterns and cultural customs, many of which have been in existence since Roman times, the Stams-Haiming region presented problems that could be solved only by a complete reversal of the former attitudes and practices of the local population. How they were brought to an awareness of joint responsibility in any basic undertaking and to an acceptance of technological change is the subject of this paper. It would be impossible to understand how enormous has been the reversal of attitudes and practices of these strongly independent peasants without understanding the history that has engendered them. Hence, various aspects of their culture, from the thirteenth century to the present, including the problems arising from staunch adherence to customs and laws, population increases, recurrent droughts, and technological changes of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, have been treated in an effort to show how these factors finally impressed upon the people the need for regional planning.

The author, who was personally responsible for introducing dictating machines into the offices of a large firm, discusses their advantages and disadvantages from the point of view both of the dictator and the transcriber. He himself strongly favours the machine system, urging that its alleged disadvantages are not inherent, but are due mainly to dislike of novelty or to lack of suitable instruction in the use of the machine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]