The impact of organizational context on innovation adoption in commercial banks

This study examines the linkages between nonstructured factors in an organization´s context and dimensions of innovation adoption in organizations. Elements of an organization´s context included in this study are size, geographic scope, and product scope; dimensions of innovation are magnitude and speed of adoption and product and process types of innovation. The relationships among these variables are examined by a sampling of empirical data culled from 101 commercial banks in four states: New York; New Jersey; Connecticut; and Massachusetts. We found that: (1) organization size and geographic scope have a stronger association with magnitude than the speed of adoption, while product scope is more strongly linked to the speed of adoption; (2) geographic and product scope influence the propensity to adopt product and process innovations differently; and (3) the pattern of innovation adoption differs among various types of banks