Adoption and Discontinuance of Innovations

Diffusion of 31 durable goods in 70 countries over a period of 32 years is analyzed using principal component analysis biplots. While marketers have focused on adoption of innovations, studying discontinuance provides an opportunity to explore the needs of the market and create a more sustainable approach to marketing activity. Discontinuance, disposal and dispossession are defined: Discontinuance is studied from a technology-centered point of view, and disposal and dispossession from an object-centered and a people-centered point of view. The discontinuance process is divided into five categories, and its relation to the adoption process is studied. Dive is a sudden increase in the rate of discontinuance of durable goods. A hidden incubation time which affects time-to-dive and may cause an over-prediction is found for every type of product category. Applications and extensions of these findings on products entering the decline stage of their life-cycle are discussed.