The Fusion Model for Organizational Adoption of Innovation

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Abstract

The Fusion Model articulates a strategy for organizational adoption of innovative solutions. As an end-to-end road map for success, the Fusion Model can inform change from initial conversations about adoption through to establishing a new norm within organizational culture. The adoption of new tools and processes is a necessary change for organizations and, with guidance, can be less  disruptive to organizational culture.

Keywords: Change Management; Planned Change; Innovation; Analysis, Design, Development, Evaluation.

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Introduction

The Fusion Model is employed to strategize organizational adoption of innovative solutions (Shippee 2016). As an end-to-end road map for success, the Fusion Model supports planning from initial conversations about adoption through to establishing a new norm within your organizational culture. We understand the adoption of new tools and processes to be a necessary change for organizations and with the support of our team we will guide you through without disrupting your learning culture.

Why Fusion? 

The Fusion model was built on two research fields: the diffusion of innovation and activity theory. Both were developed independently of each other and have been brought together (fused) to support the disruption caused by the pursuit of meaningful change.

What is Innovation?

Diffusion of Innovation research examines how practitioners approach new initiatives (Rogers, 2003), how they attempt to adopt new methodologies with new technologies into their local contexts, and what learning challenges they are facing and why. An innovation is an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or organization. We often think of technology being the very definition of innovation, yet technology is simply a type of innovation (Shippee, 2018). The process of adopting innovation often begins when organizations engage in opportunistic surveillance by scanning the environment for new ideas that might benefit the organization. Driven by a perceived need to begin an innovation process, sometimes knowledge of an innovation, rather than the recognition of a problem, launches the innovation process. An ‘organization’ can be defined as individuals who work together to achieve common goals through a hierarchy of ranks and divisions of labor 

Why Adoption (rather than integration)?

For an organization to fully leverage an innovation, it must be adopted into their organization. Adoption and integration are very different terms. Adoption implies the power to choose, whereas integration can infer a forced change (Shippee, 2018).

The Activity Theory (AT) system illustrates how the multiple variables in any activity are involved in the generation of a specified outcome. The AT system provides a critical lens to investigate the activity of innovation adoption within an organization. 

Figure 1.1 The Impact of Cultural, Economic, and Historical Context on the AT Framework (Engeström 1987).

The adoption of innovation must be understood as organizational change that lead to organizations allocating resources differently, re-organizing units, and communicating differently.

Where do we start change? 

Solve a skill-knowledge problem by designing, developing, implementing, and evaluating instruction. The activity system is analyzed to understand relevant contexts within which the activities occur and to understand the informants’ motivations and interpretations of what they perceive they need to accomplish. 

The final step, the interaction of the components of the system are examined to reveal any contradictions of inconsistencies, specifically, contradictions within the needs of the target audience and the objectives of the project. Additionally, in this step historical factors examining past practice are described.

When the interacting attributes of an organization interact to solve a skill-knowledge problem by designing, developing, implementing, and evaluating instruction (Goal), practical questions are employed.

Table 1.1 AT System Components Definitions and Practical Applications

	Defined	In Practice
Subject	The individuals and work groups that would be formed in the organization to fulfill goals through the activity of instructional design and development. Individual actions include conducting a needs assessment, perform task analysis, and designing instructional interactions. In an instructional design context, this may be a single designer or a team consisting of designers, a manager, subject matter expert, and media producers.	How do you understand your organizational culture? (who fits where from your perspective)FOCUS: Who are the Innovators and Early Adopters who can help?What are their roles?
Object	The effective and efficient instruction includes a form and function that is likely to be modified as the activity unfolds. In an instructional design context, this may be a curriculum design, hypertext program, workshop, or a videotape that is produced.	What types of interventions might work to help organizational adoption? (this is a moving target and will change over time)
Tools	Design models and methods employed, including the physical apparatus and tools and reasoning that mediate the group’s activity toward designing and developing instruction. In an instructional design context this may consist of the software production tools, project management system, or any other kind of tool that instructional designers use to transform the object.	What technology based solutions are available? (hardware and software)
Community	Consists of the interdependent aggregate (e.g., designers within the organization, subject matter experts, designers within professional associations, customers) that shares a set of social meanings.	How would you describe your organizational community? Locally? Regionally?
Rules	The inherent guide of the actions and activities acceptable by the community, with signs, symbols, tools, models, and methods that the community uses to mediate the process.	What means (financial and otherwise) are acceptably accessible for completion of the project?What methods are used to mediate the process? What departments are used to support adoption?
Division of Labor	Prescribed task specializations (designers, developers, producers) by individual members of groups within the community or organization.	What does the organizational hierarchy look like?What tasks need to be achieved?
Outcome	The form of instruction that is developed and implemented.	What will be produced?

5 stages of Organizational Adoption of Innovation

As illustrated, the organizational adoption is seemingly linear in its left-to-right organizational adoption model Each stage describes the steps taken by an organization adopting an innovation. Once the criteria for a stage was satisfied the organization advances to the next stage. 

Table 1.2 Identification and Criteria for Five Stages of Organizational Adoption of Innovation

Stage Identification	Criteria
Agenda Setting: the organization identifies a problem.	1. Identify and prioritize needs and problems.2. Search the organization’s environment to locate innovations of potential usefulness to meet an organizational problem.
Matching: a problem from the organization’s agenda is fit with an innovation, and this match is planned and designed.	1. Decision-makers determine the feasibility of the innovation in solving the organization’s problem.2. Decision-makers decide to accept or reject an innovation.
Redefining/Restructuring: an innovation has been adopted and now is re-invented to more closely fit within the organization’s needs and structure.	1. The innovation is re-defined to explain how it can fit organizational needs.2. The organization re-structures to fit the innovation to find it a home.
Clarifying: as the innovation is put into more widespread use, the idea gradually becomes clearer to the organization’s members.	1. Innovation is employed within the organization.2. More members of the organization seek to use the innovation.
Routinizing: the innovation becomes incorporated into the regular activities of the organization and loses its separate identity.	1. The innovation is a seamless part of daily operations.2. The innovation’s adoption is organization-wide.

At each stage of the process, failure to initiate or implement an innovation was a real possibility, as with any emergent technology comes unforeseen problems, and the strategies used to address them can greatly inform future decisions.

Fusion Model

The work of Rogers (2003) and Engeström (1987) were combined to take advantage of a case study’s greatest strength allowing a researcher to trace events over time (Yin, 2003). Yet, this approach attempts to clarify the starting and ending points of themes in the case study by employing Rogers (2003) process. Future researchers interested in exploring the diffusion of innovation overtime should look to employ a similar approach that allows for a consistently detailed understanding at each stage of the process.

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Also published: Shippee, Micah, The Fusion Model for Organizational Adoption of Innovation (May 4, 2020). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4664783 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4664783

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Sources Cited

Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by Expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to

developmental research. Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit. Retrieved from http://lchc.ucsd.edu/mca/Paper/Engestrom/Learning-by-Expanding.pdf

Rogers, E.M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations (5^th ed.). New York: Free Press.

Shippee, Micah (2016) “mLearning in the organizational innovation process.” Dissertation. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/452. Note: In this original work, The Fusion Model is generically titled “Activity in the organizational innovation process.” 

Shippee, M. (2019) WanderlustEDU: An Educator’s Guide to Innovation, Change, and Adventure. San Diego: Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc.

Yin, R. K. (2003). Case study research: Design and methods. (3^rd ed.). Thousand Oaks,         CA: Sage Publications, Inc.