Important factors which appear to affect the rate of diffusion (speed at which a new technology
is accepted) are the characteristics of the small business and the characteristics of the technology
itself. Early work on the categories of adopt found that further to adoption following a normal
distribution curve the distribution could be used to show the categories of adopters (Rogers,
1962). Table 4.1 shows the categories of adopters with the majority of adopters lying between
the mean and the mean minus/plus the standard deviation on the normal distribution curve.