early adopter

Examples of early adopter in the following topics:

• Commercializing Innovative Products

  • It is important to keep in mind where the early adopters will be and where competitive gaps may exist.
  • This primary consumer group will include innovators, early adopters, heavy users, and opinion leaders.
  • Their buy-in will ensure adoption by other consumers in the marketplace during the product growth period.

• Sourcing Technology

  • Early adopters and innovators suffer the risk of employing a new technology that has not been fully debugged, minimizing what should have been strong returns on investment (ROI).

• The Technology Life Cycle

  • The other important consideration is the differentiation in consumer adoption of new technological innovations.
  • Early Adopters - A larger but still relatively small demographic, these individuals are generally risk-oriented and highly adaptable to new technology.
  • Early adopters follow the innovators in embracing new products, and tend to be young and well-educated.
  • Early Majority - Much larger and more careful than the previous two groups, the early majority are open to new ideas but generally wait to see how they are received before investing.
  • This adoption chart highlights the way in which consumers embrace new products and services.

• Leadership and Gender

  • Studies conducted in the 1980s and early 1990s found that women adopt participative styles of leadership and were more often transformational leaders than men, who more commonly adopted directive, transactional styles.

• Assessing an Organization's Technological Needs

  • As successive groups of consumers adopt new technology a bell curve emerges - this is referred to as the innovation adoption life cycle (the blue bell curve on the above graphic).
  • By keeping pace with technological innovation, and offering products early enough to capture the majority of the market, businesses can gain competitive advantage.

• Types of Social Responsibility: Philanthropy

  • The roots of corporate philanthropy in the United States date back to the rise of industry in the 19th and early 20th century, when pioneering businessmen like Henry Ford and John D.
  • Since the early 2000's, corporations have sought to hold charities accountable for how they use donations.
  • As a result, many nonprofit groups have adopted business practices for measuring their own performance.

• Ethical Conflicts

  • If the manager informs his staff, is that fair to the other employees whose managers did not reveal the information early?
  • By adopting a principle-based method of weighing the advantages and disadvantages of both alternatives in an ethical dilemma, managers can face two competing values and reach a decision.

• Considering Company Size

  • Companies may adopt one of six organizational structures based upon company size and diversity of scope of operations.
  • Structure becomes more difficult to change as companies evolve; for this reason, understanding which specific structure will function best within a given company environment is an important early step for the management team.

• Codes of Conduct

  • Organizations adopt codes of conduct to guide employees' actions and decisions.
  • Ethical codes are adopted by organizations to assist members in understanding the difference between right and wrong and applying that understanding to their decisions and actions.
  • A code of practice is adopted to regulate a particular profession.

• Leadership Styles

  • Leaders may adopt several styles according to what is most appropriate in a given situation.
  • Each style of leadership can be effective if matched with the needs of the situation and used by a skilled leader who can adopt a deft approach.
  • Explain how different leadership styles may be adopted according to the demands of a given circumstance