IDENTIFYING EARLY ADOPTERS OF NEW IT PRODUCTS - A CASE OF WINDOWS-95

This paper presents the findings of an empirical study into factors id entifying early adopters of new IT products. Drawing two well-research ed concepts (opinion leadership and consumer innovativeness) developed in the marketing field, several hypotheses were formulated to test ag ainst data collected from 145 microcomputer users who had or had not a dopted Windows 95. The findings indicate that early adopters tend to b e younger males who are of opinion leadership type, like to seek novel information, and have a lot of computer experience. Implications of t he findings, from both a research and a managerial perspective are dis cussed. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.