The time pattern of adoption and the speed at which it take place are distinct happenings. The explanation time period when implementing an innovation can provide imitators with a "window of opportunity " to proliferate. Empirical studies suggest that the adoption of a new technology follows a bell - shaped, or normal, distribution curve . By plotting cumulatively this show the number of small business who have adopted a new technology in any given year, and the distribution will given an "S" - shaped curve. (It was Gabriel Tarde who im the Laws of Imitations, 1903, proposed that adoption plotted against time assume a normal distribution, or if plotted cumulatively assume the "s" -shaped curve.) An "S"- shaped distribution, not necessarily derived from a normal distribution, shows the spread of most new technology. There are two general reasons for the occurrence of this distribution.