Managing Innovation

Introduction

Different innovations are being developed each day around the globe. Some tend to reach the national and internal stage, thereby making it a ubiquitous part of day-to-day life. Specific innovations prove to be significant for a select group of people, while it tends to be unknown outside of such user groups. Most of the invention does not make it too far outside their close circle of developers (Burgess & et al. 2017).

This particular report shall demonstrate two main innovation theories in detail. One of them is the innovation diffusion theory, and the other is the technology acceptance model. The company that has been chosen for the study is Zoom. There are nearly 300 million active participants' regularly on the Zoom platform, and has emerged as the story of substantial disruptive innovation around the globe. It has attained worldwide adoption from all over the world.

Theoretical explanation

Innovation diffusion theory

Before diving into the theories of innovation diffusion, it becomes imperative to step back to comprehend the meaning of innovation, diffusion, and innovation adoption. In simpler terms, innovation can be identified as introducing some new thing, which can be an idea, process, and product. In the year 1962, Everest Roger brought forward his Innovation Diffusion Theory referenced in the case analysis. It tends to act as a foundation basically for comprehending innovation adoption along with factors impacting an individual's choices regarding innovation. Because Roger's theory is broader in scope, that makes itself quite flexible in different contexts. However, at times it becomes pretty challenging to make use of it as a process model in cases when planning is performed for changes in the organization because of the adoption of innovation. Four significant components prevail in Roger's diffusion theory, such as innovation, communication channel being utilized for broadcasting information regarding innovation, the time taken by the individuals to move through the adoption methods, and social systems prevailing around the adopters. When there is the interaction of such components, it helps the person in comprehending the reasons behind an individual choosing to adopt an innovation or not. In the case of Roger's theory, a sub-method of diffusion has been the innovation-decision that shall lead to the adoption or rejection of particular innovation (Agag & El-Masry, 2016). There are five stages potential adopters move through such a process. One of them has been seeking knowledge and information regarding a particular innovation along with its function. The other one is persuasion, when the potential adopter would create an opinion regarding a specific innovation. In the third stage, a decision is made for adopting or rejecting the innovation. In the fourth stage, the adopter tends to implement the innovation. Lastly, the adopter is in the confirmation stage, looking for reinforcement of their decision to adopt a particular innovation. For this specific stage, they are likely to continue implementing innovation when benefits are sought, or they are likely to alter their decisions and thus reject particular innovations. It can be revealed that Rogers tends to extend beyond the adoption method by determining the five attributes that impact if innovation is adopted or not. The five different attributes are relative advantage, complexity, observability, trialability, and compatibility. Comparative advantage tends to imply how much greater or lesser the benefits of innovation are compared to the alternatives. Compatibility suggests how well the innovation fits with the prevailing methods or workflow of potential adopters. When the innovation is perceived as challenging to learn and implement, it is less likely to be adopted. The reason behind it is that its complexity is found to be relatively high. It can be revealed that the potential adopters would accept innovation in case they attain an opportunity to experiment with and test before deciding if an innovation needs to be adopted or not. This is identified as a liability. Observability tends to take place in case an innovation has been adopted by different people among cultures that most of the people had not even thought of adopting, tends to alter their mind and consider implementing an innovation (Tett & Macleod, 2020).

Technology acceptance model

David (1985) Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) states that it is a potential adopter's attitude and expectations of innovation, thereby impacting the chances of its adoption. Two main concepts in TAM are how innovation is viewed by the potential adopter associated with its ease of use. It also tries to comprehend how easy the invention is likely to be to learn and implement along with its usefulness; Out of the two elements studied, it is believed by David that ease of use tends to possess a direct impact over perceived usefulness. The reason behind this is that the easier an adopter perceives an innovation to be for help, there are high chances that they would make use of it and thus experience massive output, thereby becoming quite significant for the adopter. In further studies, David revealed the fact that there was an association between perceived usefulness and technology adoption in comparison to perceived usefulness and adoption. From the test results, he concluded that it doesn't make sense how accessible technology is to learn. People are not likely to implement it if they do not perceive it to help raise output (Wisdom & et al., 2013).

One example of the implementation of TAM to evaluate the adoption of innovation tends to take place from a study in the UK determining the factors impacting if someone participates in the online travel community. In this particular study, compatibility, perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness, among certain other factors, have been detailed in TAM. It has been concluded that all aspects had a significant role in ascertaining involvement in online travel communities.

Theoretical Application

Use of innovation diffusion theory in Zoom

The zoom application has been developed by Eric Yuan and is considered to be an online discussion tool that possesses video conferencing features. It also includes online meeting features and communication features such as chat rooms and tends to share screen features. Zoom application tends to be offered basically in the mobile and computer application with the objective that users can make use of the app on different devices. When the learning process is taken into consideration, it is noted that innovation such as remote discussion applications is required in cases when learning is not possible with an offline and face-to-face meeting. With the help of this particular teacher and students are capable of holding online learning so that the teachers and the students are qualified to conduct the study as usual. It is presentation sharing, content sharing as well as two-way communication in such applications that tend to assist teachers and students in interacting communicatively. Communication channel tends to become one important factor that impacts the success of the diffusion of the innovation method. The messages of innovation are distributed to the public that is the target of the adopter using communication channels. According to Roger(1996), for making an idea acceptable, there is a need for distinct communication channels that are subjective and tend to be helpful for the agent of change while informing people to make use of the innovation (Straub, 2009). The implementation of online learning demands the readiness of schools and students. It also requires qualified as well as easily accessible technology. The school also tries to innovate by organizing online learning methods. Through the Zoom application, teachers and students are well capable of managing online learning basically in a pandemic situation.

The adoption method can be considered as the steps that a person would take from receiving information to the implementation of innovation. Roger revealed the fact that the adoption method did not stop soon after innovation was accepted or rejected. It goes through one more step, namely confirmation that takes place after the invention has been implemented. It can be revealed that COVID 19 tends to be the factor that triggers the initial adoption methods. During the pandemic, most of the kids are required to stay home, and thus the parents are supposed to accompany their kids during online studies. Schools aim at parents to adapt the Zoom application. The attitude towards changes taking place in pandemic forces the parent and students to accept the adoption decision. Some of the parents are not yet getting this adoption properly. Roger believes the fact that in the decision step, there is a need for support from the peer group and agents of change along with the opinion leader's role.

Along with students, parents also possess a significant role in implementing Zoom application over child online learning methods. There are some challenges in implementing online learning in the Zoom application (Rahayu, 2020). Parents are not able to manage their time correctly between online learning schedules and work. The other obstacle that the Zoom app tends to face has been that students found that they faced issues in consulting with teachers while they require a more profound explanation and understanding.

Use of Technology Acceptance Model in Zoom

Technology is considered to be essential means of supporting human activities as well as mobility each day. It is the occurrence of the information system technology that makes it relatively easier to perform the activities faster, effectively, and efficiently. During pandemic times, there has been a rise in the use of information technology. The government appeals to people to work from home, maintain social distancing, and adjust to the work systems. This is also applicable in education by learning to teach at home by using some applications. The acceptance of using technology tends to be impacted by the experience that the user tends to bear. It is perceived that user having a good experience would be showing a positive attitude towards technology and vice versa. Different studies have been performed to comprehend the impact of expertise on TAM. Assessing how TAM assisted managers in understanding the user intention to revisit a particular website and how it has altered with the pace of time as users attained experience over the internet and website, researchers noted that user's knowledge of the website has a moderating role play. In the case of less experienced users, perceived ease of use can be considered as one of the main factors in choosing to revisit the website. Perceived usefulness can be regarded as to be possessing more experienced users. It has been noted that there is a positive relation between Computer self-efficacy and PU of Zoom. It has also been reported that there is a positive association between computer self-efficacy and PEU. It is noted that in an educational setting, there is an association between utilization of Zoom and Computer Self-Efficacy. It is noted that there is a thriving association between Computer Self-Efficacy and TAM. Perceived usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and Behavioral Intention to use can be considered to possess a significant impact on the Actual System Usage of the Zoom Application. Ease of use of a particular application can be regarded as the leading practice in different application development industries. It implies that an increasing number of users are interested in making use of it, and thus increasing number of people are ready to make use of the Zoom application (Roger, 2018).

Future Development

Future of Zoom

It has been identified that the core product capabilities of Zoom are pretty superior. However, it is significant to comprehend how Zoom tends to create and capture value. The ease of the use of a particular platform tends to be quite simple with few clicks. The users, from children to baby boomer grandparents, find the user interface to be relatively easy. The platform is capable of permitting for group meetings with video titles that are arranged pleasingly, ask for questions, write over digital whiteboards and thus react with emojis. It can be revealed that Zoom has been positioned in a unique manner that permits it to grow and capture value for two different reasons. Most of the knowledge workers are found to be working from home for a year. It is a pandemic that tends to force companies to digitalize quickly than they would have. Though the employers would force their workers to return for full-time work, the likely long-term trend has been more employee choice regarding where they would work. It can be revealed that the brand awareness of the company has increased soon after the pandemic hit. It has further been known that the company had created lots of goodwill with the customers. Since the company was founded, the chief objective has been to offer cloud video communications solutions, thereby making the customers contended. The growth experienced and industry accolades attained can be attributed to possessing satisfied customers, thereby enjoying the platform. However, what would happen after the pandemic. Students would return to their physical school again. The remote workers would be returning to the brick and mortar buildings. The company is worried if Zoom's period of massive growth would plummet or plateau. It can be revealed that remote work trends had happened before the pandemic occurred (Park, 2009). Pandemic has just increased the pace of growth of the company. Zoom would support workers as it transitions back from capabilities such as Smart Gallery that tends to improve the experience of face-to-face communication, thereby taking place between remote workers and the ones in the office. According to the experts, it is often believed that work after pandemic would be a pretty hybrid which would possess a mixture of remote work and occasional in-office time. It can be noted that the company has seen significant growth in its customer base, which has also helped in raising the revenues of the company.

Zoom is already being used for different purposes before the pandemic. To progress, it becomes significant for companies to innovate regularly. This has been evident from the theories that have been discussed above, namely Technology Accepted Model and Innovation Diffusion Theory. It has been identified that Zoom has recently launched On Zoom, which is considered to be an event hosting platform for meeting the needs of small business owners. On Zoom can be regarded as a comprehensive solution basically for paid Zoom users for developing, hosting, and monetizing the events such as fitness classes, stand-up shows, or music lessons over Zoom Meeting platforms. With the help of the new platform, SMBs, as well as individual business owners, are capable of hosting and monetizing different virtual events. Few things would continue even after the vaccine because it is just convenient. People will be capable of taking piano lessons or cooking classes from home itself. It can be revealed that such innovations tend to drive more interactions with end-user customers. After the pandemic, Zoom would require leveraging the special status that it has earned in case of crisis by locating ways to strengthen association forged in case of pandemic and thus avoid being a memory after the pandemic becomes history. It shall prove to be one of the main components of the company's long-term sustainability (Hall, 1979).

It can further be revealed that customer conversion can also be considered significant for Zoom's product strategy. Zoom has proven the fact that work and school can be conducted effectively in the cloud. Zoom needs to leverage such valuable learned experience and thus try to minimize the negative impact of unnecessary business travels. This can be done by staying true to the product strategy of Zoom. Zoom needs to be compatible enough with all devices so that the adoption rate of this particular app tends to increase shortly. Perceived ease of use of the product also needs to be high, and the product needs to be made valid for the customers by increasing the features and making it appear unique for customers. It can be identified that in the case of online learning, perceived ease of use tends to be essential for perceived usefulness and attitude of faculties in Zoom software, basically for web classes. New technology offers tensions to users in case of use of the technology. It is significant for companies to create uncontested market space. It is also essential to create and capture new demand. The companies must align the whole system of the firm's activities with the strategic choice of differentiation or low cost. It is a well-known fact that companies tend to innovate faster than customer's lives changes (Damiano, 2011).

Conclusion

Innovation implies enhancing or replacing something such as a process, product, or service. Using innovation, a domain, product, or service tends to be renewed and thus made up to date by implementing new methods, introducing new techniques, or developing successful ideas for making new values. Every day many different innovations are being created all over the globe. There are various theories of creation, out of which two approaches have been studied in detail. Adoption of innovation can be considered as one of the main challenges, thereby diffusing the innovation in organizations, society, and groups. Distinct theories and models prevail for innovation adoption and diffusion that contradict each other in certain aspects and thus overlap in others. It is significant to analyze organizational change because it is associated with innovation adoption. It is essential for one's organization when taking into account the adoption of innovation. Initially, by assessing another organization's change method through the utilization of adequate models or theories, the result is likely to assist leaders in avoiding mistakes made by the assessed organization. There isn't one particular right model for change situations and organization. Zoom needs to be aware of the loopholes in its system, and thus an organization needs to keep innovating to keep the sales and profitability high.

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References

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