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Diffusion of Innovations Explained

The document discusses Everett Rogers' theory of the diffusion of innovations. It describes how innovations spread through a social system over time via communication channels. Rogers identified five categories of adopters - innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Each category is defined based on attributes like risk tolerance, social status, opinion leadership, and how early or late they typically adopt innovations.

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Neha Soni
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249 views3 pages

Diffusion of Innovations Explained

The document discusses Everett Rogers' theory of the diffusion of innovations. It describes how innovations spread through a social system over time via communication channels. Rogers identified five categories of adopters - innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. Each category is defined based on attributes like risk tolerance, social status, opinion leadership, and how early or late they typically adopt innovations.

Uploaded by

Neha Soni
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Diffusion of innovations

Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system. Diffusion is a special type of communication concerned with the spread of messages that are perceived as new ideas. An innovation, simply put, is an idea perceived as new by the individual. The characteristics of an innovation, as perceived by the members of a social system, determine its rate of adoption.
Everett Rogers, a professor of rural sociology, popularized the theory in his 1962 book Diffusion of Innovations.

Adopter category

Definition

Innovators

Innovators are the first individuals to adopt an innovation. Innovators are willing to take risks, youngest in age, have the highest social class, have great financial lucidity, very social and have closest contact to scientific sources and interaction with other innovators. Risk tolerance has them adopting technologies which may ultimately fail. Financial resources help absorb these failures. (Rogers 1962 5th ed, p. 282)

Early Adopters

This is the second fastest category of individuals who adopt an innovation. These individuals have the highest degree of opinion leadership among the other adopter categories. Early adopters are typically younger in age, have a higher social status, have more financial lucidity, advanced education, and are more socially forward than late adopters. More discrete in adoption choices than innovators. Realize judicious choice of adoption will help them maintain central communication position (Rogers 1962 5th ed, p. 283).

Early Majority

Individuals in this category adopt an innovation after a varying degree of time. This time of adoption is significantly longer than the innovators and early adopters. Early Majority tend to be slower in the adoption process, have above average social status, contact with early adopters, and seldom hold positions of opinion leadership in a system (Rogers 1962 5th ed, p. 283)

Late Majority

Individuals in this category will adopt an innovation after the average member of the society. These individuals approach an innovation with a high degree of skepticism and after the majority of society has adopted the innovation. Late Majority are typically skeptical about an innovation, have below average social status, very little financial lucidity, in contact with others in late majority and early majority, very little opinion leadership.

Laggards

Individuals in this category are the last to adopt an innovation. Unlike some of the previous categories, individuals in this category show little to no opinion leadership. These individuals typically have an aversion to change-agents and tend to be advanced in age. Laggards typically tend to be focused on "traditions", likely to have lowest social status, lowest financial fluidity, be oldest of all other adopters, in contact with only family and close friends.

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