Leapfrogging and Internet Implementation by Tourism Organizations

Abstract

Drawing upon the Diffusion of Innovations (DOI) and technological ideologies, this article develops three areas for research of successful Internet implementation. The first research area is to operationalize and validate measures of successful Internet implementation. The second area calls for investigating how five factors—bandwagon effects, leapfrog effects, cloud computing, open communities, and system legacy—relate to successful Internet implementation. Finally, this article proposes combining technology ideologies and adopter categories to examine (un)successful Internet implementation. Diffusion of Innovations covers many aspects of innovation adoption and implementation, but implementation stage research remains sparse and perhaps no diffusion research has incorporated moral values towards technology. The article concludes with the contributions of this agenda for researching successful Internet implementation.