eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

Objectives: The broad aim of this research is to understand how innovations diffuse in a business-to-business network that is interaction-intensive. Past research on innovation diffusion has mostly focused on business-to-consumer. This research examines innovation diffusion in a unique B2B context with two specific objectives. The first objective is to determine which factors influence the diffusion of innovations in a B2B network. The second objective is to observe the vigorously changing advertising industry in order to study how traditional actors coexist with new actors, brought upon by digital advances in marketing.

Methodology: This research is qualitative in nature. This research uses semi-structured face-to-face interviews with managers as empirical data, conducted for the purposes of this study. In total 18 interviews were used for this study. These cases were analyzed by using qualitative analysis methods.

Findings: The research generated interesting findings. The advertising industry is undergoing significant changes with the combination of traditional media industry and new actors brought upon by digital advances in marketing. This combination has divided the industry, creating strong competition. Innovation diffusion can not be strongly enhanced by only one organization, as relationships and partnerships drive creative services. The responsibility for innovation is difficult, but with unsuccessful innovation adoption companies risk failure of serving their partners and customers in the future.