The late-adopter scale: A measure of late adopters of technological innovations

The diffusion of innovation is an interesting topic for researchers and practitioners. However, researchers often focus on the first half of the diffusion of innovation curve, ignoring the late adopters. This article presents two studies with high-tech products (mobiles and laptops) that measure the attributes of late adopters. The first study of mobile phones uses 50 initial items. After Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), a refined version of these items permits to develop an initial version of the late-adopter scale. The study tests the new scale on a sample of laptop users. The final scale is multi-dimensional, presents nomological and discriminant validity and has three dimensions: (1) slowness of adoption, (2) resistance to innovation, and (3) skepticism. All three late-adopter scale dimensions significantly associate with low price preference. In both samples, skepticism associates with high preference for simple products, low lead-user profile, and low product involvement. Discussion focuses on the implications of this new scale for theory and practice of new product development and diffusion of innovation in high-tech firms.