Abstract

As information and communication technologies become increasingly enmeshed in our personal lives, individuals have greater exposure to innovations that may be adaptable to work-related tasks. While innovations have traditionally been introduced into and diffused through organizations in a top-down manner, some innovations spread through grassroots diffusion. We define grassroots diffusion as the process by which the use of an innovation spreads throughout an organization through informal means and without organizational sanction or support. In this paper we describe the grassroots diffusion process and pose a number of research questions that may help guide our investigation of this phenomenon. In addition, we provide theory-based discussions of a number of relevant issues. Further, we present theoretically-derived propositions that may provide guidance for future research. Taken together, these elements form a research agenda that may be useful in moving research into grassroots diffusion forward.

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