Abstract
We extend understanding of information-based bandwagons by considering a common
condition under which adoption of a practice by small organizations has a
disproportionate influence on future adoption propensities. We hypothesize that
when the value of adoption is expected to increase with organizational size,
smaller adopters have such influence because they allow observers to infer that
adoption will be profitable for their own organization. We further elaborate the
theory by predicting that alternative information sources will moderate the
influence of smaller adopters. Empirically, we test our theory with longitudinal
data on the adoption of the ISO 9000 quality management standard.
Keywords: Bandwagons, Mimetic Adoption, Institutional Theory, Inference, Information Cascades