Information source preference in the industrial adoption process: The case of United States manufacturing industry

Technology adoption is an indispensable process for survival in a competitive business environment. Potential buyers gather information about new technologies from various information sources. The challenge for industrial marketers is how to meet potential buyers' preferences for certain information sources through different promotional tools.; The purpose of this research is to explore the relationship between a firm's technology adoption and an industrial buyers' information source preference. Specifically, the research is focused on the following three subjects: (1) the identification of industrial managers' preferences for certain information sources, (2) how such preferences may differ among firms of various sizes, and (3) the analysis of how differences in information source preference among companies might impact adoption of new manufacturing technologies.; The main data source for this research comes from a 1987 national survey of over 2,000 U.S. manufacturing establishments in 21 industries. The survey was designed to include a representative sample of establishments from small size plants to the largest. The plant managers were asked to rate the importance of nine sources of information. The selected nine information sources are classified into four categories for the analysis: commercial versus non-commercial and personal versus impersonal.; To identify differences in information source preference among the various firm sizes, a descriptive approach is used. In addition, logistic analysis is applied to examine the degree of impact certain information sources had on the technology adoption.; Through the analysis of information source preference and logistic regression, it was found that, small firms are significantly more likely to prefer contact from other firm's people than are medium or large firms. This may reflect the importance of word-of-mouth communication to small firms in industrial marketing. Secondly, organizational characteristics such as firm size have a significant effect on information source preference. Finally, commercial and impersonal information sources have the greatest affect in the technology adoption. Non-commercial and personal information sources are the least effective sources in a firm's technology adoption process. These findings should assist industrial marketers in planning their marketing strategies.