A Cusp Catastrophe Model of the Adoption of an Industrial Innovation

The diffusion of a technological innovation often follows the pattern of the familiar ‘S’‐curve—the classic smooth, cumulative adoption curve. Yet, an individual firm's decision to adopt or reject an innovation may be filled with discontinuous events, represented by familiar concepts like diffusion thresholds, bandwagon effects and the sudden rejection or displacement of an existing innovation. Paul Herbig reports how catastrophe theory can be used to describe many of these sudden changes and discontinuities. His article describes a model for a firm's adoption or rejection of an innovation via the cusp catastrophe, which he illustrates with a number of possible examples.