The diffusion of computer‐assisted legal research systems

This article examines how individuals at different stages in the innovation‐decision process perceive computer‐assisted legal research systems (CALR). Following Barnett's (“An associational model for the diffusion of complex innovations.” Presented at the International Communication Association, Chicago, IL; 1978 [1]) associational model for the diffusion of complex innovations, a survey is described which applied metric multidimensional scaling to measure the cognitive structure of potential adopters toward a domain of concepts related to CALR. The study demonstrates the utility of this approach for examining the diffusion process. The results suggest that there are clear distinctions in the structures of individuals' associations at different stages in the diffusion process. First, people at later stages in the process identify more closely with the various online systems. Second, adopters more closely associate the attributes which describe the advantages of computer‐based systems with the systems. Third, the variance in the population's perceptions of the relationship among the concepts decreases. Implications of the results are discussed. © 1988 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.