Abandoning innovations: Network evidence on enterprise collaboration software
The diffusion of innovations is a central problem in the study of online and offline social networks. Although a considerable amount of attention has been paid to when innovations are adopted, few studies have considered the reverse process of when innovations are abandoned. We examine this process among employees in a large technology company using a unique dataset on the use of an enterprise collaboration system'an innovative software tool used to help employees collaborate with one another. The data consider a bipartite network of over 49,000 employees connected by over 26,000 communities, over a time period of around 4 years. Using timestamped data on posts to the software, we construct a real-time measure of when an employee begins using the software and ultimately abandons the software. We find that employees are more likely to stop using the software when the software has lesser value for them. Value is measured as the number of other users of the software. We consider value both locally'the number of other users that someone is connected to'and globally'the number of users in the company as whole. Our findings shed light on how use in different areas of an organization can cascade into widespread adoption or abandonment, and on the diffusion of innovations process as a whole.
