The Speed of Adoption of Technology and Time Punctuality: The Case of Internet Usage

While various researchers have considered economic, demographic, regulatory, infrastructure, and other factors as potential determinants of diffusion, less attention has been given to the potential role that culture plays. This is unfortunate, because cultural factors may not just represent proximate causes for differences in technological diffusion across countries, but they may also be the deep-seeded underlying structural powers that ultimately determine the technological adoption behavior of countries. This paper uses cross country regression analysis to see whether the cultural trait of time punctuality is consequential for the rate of internet diffusion over the period 1990 to 2010. The results are consistent with the notion that time punctuality is important and favorable for the diffusion of Internet usage.