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The adoption and development of high technology situations such as additive manufacturing is complicated because the technology system characteristics used by manufacturers are different than the technology-performance characteristics evaluated by customers. This study explores the relationship between the desktop 3D printers' underlying technology characteristics, its performance, and its price. Data were collected for 107 Fused Deposition Modelling desktop 3D printers from 2014 to 2019. Twelve technology characteristics were included such as the build volume, the material of the build platform and whether it is heated, the number of extruders, type of movements and whether it uses open source software, hardware or filament. It was found that 8% of the technology characteristics only matter for performance, 33% only matter for price, 33% for neither and 25% of the characteristics matter for both performance and price. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Additive manufacturing can be considered an innovative and high-technology and one of its characteristics is that it has limited dependency on the location. The purpose of this study is to examine this aspect by investigation how additive manufacturing is spreading globally. The focus is on established manufacturers of industrial additive manufacturing machines. It was found that the early-stage diffusion of this technology is primarily in advanced economies. Furthermore, many of the currently established companies that manufacture industrial 3D printers come from already existing companies that expanded into AM or that led to spin-off companies. The complexity of AM which requires expert knowledge across a range of fields may be the key reason for this finding. Recommendations for further research are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]