Concepts and measurements of innovativeness: the case of information and communication technologies

Consumer innovativeness is defined as the degree to which an individual or other unit of adoption adopts new ideas relatively earlier than other members of a system. Surprisingly, it appears that there is still room for discussion about this concept. This article attempts to take stock of this issue. In the first part, the different theoretical definitions of the notion are introduced critically. The second part is devoted to displaying major measurement scales that have been designed with a view to measuring this construct. This review helps in understanding the diversity of approaches to innovativeness.