How do governments respond to multiple types of external pressures under limited resources? Are the effects of different types of diffusional pressures complementary or substitutive? This article approaches these questions by examining how top‐down supports modify the effects of horizontal pressures on local innovation adoption. Top‐down supports may complement or substitute the effects of horizontal pressures given the former's potential influence on perceived innovation advantage and visibility, organizational autonomy, and environmental uncertainty. The empirical analysis based on China's municipal‐level one‐stop governments (administrative licensing centers, or ALCs) from 1997 to 2012 shows that increases in central and provincial supportive policy signals reduce the effects of neighboring municipality adoption on a municipal government's creation of an ALC. Results affirm that the effects of different types of diffusional pressures can be conditional on one another—that is, increases in top‐down policy supports may substitute the effects of horizontal pressures.

Link:https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/puar.13140