The Determinants of the Adoption Lag for Advanced Manufacturing Technologies - ARCHIVED
Articles and reports: 11F0019M1998117
This paper examines the determinants of the adoption lag for advanced technologies in the Canadian manufacturing sector. It uses plant-level data collected on the length of the adoption lag (the time between a firm's first becoming aware of a new technology and its adoption of the technology) to examine the extent to which the adoption lag is a function of the benefits and costs associated with technology adoption as well as certain plant characteristics that are proxies for a plant's receptor capabilities.
Economic theory suggests that the diffusion of advanced technologies should be a function of the benefits associated with the adoption of new technologies. Other studies have had to proxy the benefits with environmental characteristics-like proximity to markets, fertility of soils, size of firm. This paper makes use of more direct evidence collected from the 1993 Survey of Innovation and Advanced Technology concerning firms' own evaluations of the benefits and costs of adoption along with measures of overall technological competency. Both are found to be highly significant determinants of the adoption lag. Geographical nearness of suppliers decreases the adoption lag. Variables that have been previously used to proxy the benefits associated with technology adoption-variables such as larger firm size, younger age, and more diversification by the parent firm also decrease the adoption lag-but they have much less effect than the direct measure of benefits and firm competency.
Main Product: Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series
Format | Release date | More information |
---|---|---|
August 31, 1998 |
Related information
Related products
Analysis
- Articles and reports: An Explanation of the Increasing Age Premium
- Articles and reports: Are There High-tech Industries or Only High-tech Firms? Evidence from New Technology-based Firms
- Articles and reports: Computers, Fax Machines and Wages in Canada: What Really Matters?
- Articles and reports: Employment Insurance in Canada: Recent Trends and Policy Changes
- Articles and reports: Foreign-born vs Native-born Canadians: A Comparison of Their Inter-provincial Labour Mobility
- Articles and reports: Living Arrangements and Residential Overcrowding: The Situation of Older Immigrants in Canada, 1991
- Articles and reports: New Views on Inequality Trends in Canada and the United States
- Articles and reports: Recent Canadian Evidence on Job Quality by Firm Size
- Articles and reports: Technology Adoption: A Comparison Between Canada and the United States
- Articles and reports: The Effect of Technology and Trade on Wage Differentials Between Nonproduction and Production Workers in Canadian Manufacturing
- Articles and reports: The Intergenerational Earnings and Income Mobility of Canadian Men: Evidence from Longitudinal Income Tax Data
- Articles and reports: What is Happening to Earnings, Inequality and Youth Wages in the 1990s?
Subjects and keywords
Subjects
Keywords
- Analytical products
- Automated materials handling
- Benefits
- Competitiveness
- Computer networks
- Computer-aided design
- Computer-aided engineering
- Computer-integrated manufacturing
- Computers
- Costs
- Engineering
- Experienced labour force
- Expert systems
- Factories
- Foreign ownership
- Goods-producing industries
- High technology industries
- Investments
- Local area networks
- Managers
- Market conditions
- Models
- Robots
- Size of business
- Skills
- Technological change
- Variables
- Date modified: