The Late Adopter Scale: A Tool to Identify Late Adopters of Technology Innovation

Literature on innovation mainly focuses on the early adopters. The first step to involve the late adopters in the process of innovation is to identify them. With this aim, we conduct two studies and develop a scale to measure Late Adopter attributes. In study one of mobile phone users, we develop the Late-Adopter Scale, which is then tested on a new sample of laptop users. Both studies indicate that this scale is multi-dimensional and presents three dimensions of Late Adopter attributes: 1) Later Adoption, 2) Resistance to Innovation, 3) Skepticism. Findings of both studies reveal that all three Late Adopter Scale dimensions are significantly associated with low price preference. In both samples Skepticism is associated with high preference for simplicity, lower leading edge profile and lower product involvement. Discussion focuses on implications of this new scale for theory and practice.