Perceptions of innovativeness and communication about innovations: A study of three types of service organizations

It was hypothesized that the three types of service organizations identified by Mills and Margulies (1980) would exhibit differences with respect to perceived “innovation communication” (communication about innovations that may precede and/or accompany diffusion‐adoption processes) as well as differences in perceived individual innovativeness and perceived organizational innovativeness. Three questionnaire instruments were completed by 131 employees from nine organizations: one bank, six advertising firms and three schools. These organizations represented the Mills‐Margulies types of maintenance‐interactive, task‐interactive and personal‐interactive, respectively. While most directional hypotheses received partial or no support, differences emerged across organization types for both perceived innovation communication activity and perceived organizational innovativeness.