What is the diffusion of innovations?

1
What is the diffusion of innovations?
2
Different Approaches to the study of innovation.

• Rogers - communications and/as development
  paradigm.
• Winston/Bjiker - Science Technology and
  Society/SCOT
• Freeman/Soete/Schumpeter - The Economic
  importance of innovation.

3
What is diffusion?

• The process by which an innovation is
  communicated through certain channels over time
  among the members of a social system.

4
What is diffusion?

• In this context communication is
• a process whereby participants share information
  to reach a mutual understanding.

5
What is diffusion?

• Diffusion is a special type of communication in
  which the messages are about a new idea.
• The newness of the idea gives diffusion its
  special character it ensures that a degree of
  uncertainty is involved in diffusion.

6
What is diffusion?

• Uncertainty the degree to which a range of
  alternatives are perceived with regard to the
  occurrence of an event. Uncertainty implies lack
  of predictability and therefore of information.

7
What is diffusion?

• Thus information becomes a means of reducing
  uncertainty.
• Any technological innovation embodies information
  and thus reduces uncertainty about cause-effect
  relationships in problem solving.

8
What is diffusion?

• To put this in a nutshell - for Rogers,
  "diffusion of innovations" means
• The dissemination of uncertainty-reducing
  information embodied in products or processes
  through a social system.

9
The Process of the diffusion of Innovations

• Diffusion is a process where an innovation is
  communicated through certain channels over time
  among members of a social system

10
Four Elements in Diffusion of Innovations

• Diffusion is a process where
• 1) an innovation
• 2) is communicated through certain channels
• 3) over time
• 4) among members of a social system

11
The Innovation

• An idea, practice or object that is perceived as
  new by an individual or other unit of adoption.

12
The Innovation

• An invention is an idea, a sketch or model for a
  new or improved device, product, process or
  system. Such inventions may often be patented but
  they do not necessarily lead to technical
  innovations. In fact the majority do not. An
  innovation in the economic sense is accomplished
  only with the first commercial transaction
  involving the new product, process system or
  device. Freeman Soete, p. 6.

13
The Innovation

• TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS, INFORMATION AND
  UNCERTAINTY.
• Technology a design for instrumental action
  that reduces the uncertainty in the cause-effect
  relationships involved in achieving a desired
  outcome.

14
The Innovation

• Technological has 2 components
• Hardware (physical element)
• Software the information base for the tool.
• A technology may be almost entirely composed of
  information.
• This will tend to slow its diffusion because of
  poor observability

15
The Innovation

• Technology is a means of uncertainty reduction
  that is made possible by information about the
  cause-effect relationships on which the
  technology is based.

16
The Innovation

• Technological innovation both creates one kind of
  uncertainty and represents an opportunity for
  reduced uncertainty in another sense
• Increased uncertainty (about the innovations
  expected consequences)
• Reduced uncertainty (deriving from the
  information base of the technology)

17
The Innovation

• Uncertainty reducing potential provides the
  motivation for the individual to learn about the
  innovation
• One information-seeking has reduced uncertainty
  about the innovations expected consequences to a
  tolerable level, a decision concerning adoption
  will be made
• Thus the innovation-decision process is
  essentially about information seeking, allowing
  the individual to reduce uncertainty about the
  advantages and disadvantages of the innovation.

18
The Innovation

• Two kinds of information with regard to a
  technological innovation
• Software information what does it do? How does
  it work?
• Innovation-evaluation information What are an
  innovations consequences? What will its
  advantages and disadvantage be in my situation?

19
The Innovation

• Technology Clusters several distinguishable
  elements of technology perceived as being closely
  interrelated.
• Relevance - Experience with one part of a
  technology cluster conditions assessment of new
  technologies in the same cluster

20
The Innovation

• Characteristics of Innovation
• Relative Advantage
• Compatability
• Complexity
• Trialability
• Observability

21
The Innovation

• Relative Advantage over existing technologies -
  can be perceived, may be measured in economic
  terms, social prestige, convenience and
  satisfaction.

22
The Innovation

• Compatibility with existing values, past
  experiences, needs of potential adopters (and
  their social system)
• Complexity - degree to which an innovation is
  perceived as difficult to understand and use.

23
The Innovation

• Trialability degree to which an innovation may
  be experimented with on a limited basis. A
  trialable innovation represented less uncertainty
  to a potential adopter.
• Observability Degree to which the results of an
  innovation are visible to others.

24
The Innovation

• Re-invention adopting an innovation is not
  necessarily the passive role of just implementing
  a standard template of a new idea.

25
.Communications Channels

• The means by which messages get from one
  individual to another.
• The nature of the information-exchange relation
  determines the conditions under which a source
  will/will not transmit the innovation to the
  receiver and the effect of the transfer.

26
Communications Channels

• Mass-media most efficient way to create
  awareness knowledge of an innovation
• Interpersonal channels more effective in
  persuading in individual to accept a new idea.

27
Communications Channels

• Individuals do not evaluate innovations on the
  basis of a scientific assessment of its
  consequences rather depend on subjective
  assessment conveyed to them from peers. Thus
  diffusion is a social process.

28
Communications Channels

• The closer (more homophilious) two individuals
  are, the more frequently and more successful the
  transfer of ideas between them.

29
Communications Channels

• Problem - in the diffusion of innovation is
  participants are usually quite heterophilious
  thus ineffective communication likely to occur.
• Yet two exactly similar individuals cannot, by
  definition pass on information. Therefore
  diffusion demands some heterophiliousness.

30
Communications Channels

• Time - third element in the diffusion process.
  Involved in
• the innovation-decision process
• the innovativeness of an individual
• an innovations rate of adoption in a system

31
THE INNOVATION-DECISION PROCESS.

• THE INNOVATION-DECISION PROCESS - the process
  through which an individual passes from first
  knowledge of an innovation to forming an attitude
  toward the innovation, to a decision to adopt or
  reject it.

32
THE INNOVATION-DECISION PROCESS.

• Five stages in the innovation-decision process
• (1) knowledge,
• (2) persuasion,
• (3) decision,
• (4) implementation, and
• (5) confirmation.

33
THE INNOVATION-DECISION PROCESS.

• Knowledge occurs when an individual (or other
  decision-making unit) learns of the innovations
  existence and gains some understanding of how it
  functions.
• Persuasion occurs when an individual (or other
  decision-making unit) forms a favourable or
  unfavourable attitude toward the innovation.
• Decision occurs when an individual (or other
  decision-making unit) engages in activities that
  lead to a choice to adopt or reject the
  innovation.

34
THE INNOVATION-DECISION PROCESS.

• Implementation occurs when an individual (or
  other decision-making unit) puts an innovation
  into use. Re-invention is especially likely to
  occur at the implementation stage.
• Confirmation occurs when an individual (or other
  decision-making unit) seeks reinforcement of an
  innovation-decision that has already been made,
  but the individual may reverse this previous
  decision if exposed to conflicting innovation.

35
THE INNOVATION-DECISION PROCESS.

• At the knowledge stage the individual wants to
  know what the innovation is and how and why it
  works.
• Mass media channels

36
THE INNOVATION-DECISION PROCESS.

• At the persuasion stage the individual wants to
  know the innovations advantages and
  disadvantages in his or her own situation.
• Interpersonal networks

37
THE INNOVATION-DECISION PROCESS.

• Ultimately, the innovation-decision process leads
  to either adoption or to rejection.

38
INNOVATIVENESS AND ADOPTER CATEGORIES.

• Innovativeness - the degree to which an
  individual or other unit of adoption is
  relatively earlier in adopting new ideas than the
  other members of a system.
• Members of each of the adopter categories tend to
  have a good deal in common.

39
INNOVATIVENESS AND ADOPTER CATEGORIES.

• The adopter categories
• (1) innovators,
• (2) early adopters,
• (3) early majority,
• (4) late majority, and
• (5) laggards.

40
INNOVATIVENESS AND ADOPTER CATEGORIES.

• Late majority category - characterised by
• low social status,
• making little use of mass media channels
• learn about most new ideas from peers via
  interpersonal channels.

41
INNOVATIVENESS AND ADOPTER CATEGORIES.

• Innovators
• active information-seekers about new ideas.
• have a high degree of mass media exposure
• their interpersonal networks extend over a wide
  area.
• can cope with higher levels of uncertainty about
  an innovation than are other adopter categories.

42
RATE OF ADOPTION

• Rate of adoption - the relative speed with which
  an innovation is adopted by members of a social
  system.
• When the number of individuals adopting a new
  idea is plotted on a cumulative frequency basis
  over time, the resulting distribution is an
  S-shaped curve.

43
RATE OF ADOPTION
44
Rate of Adoption

• Most innovations have an S-shaped rate of
  adoption.
• But there is variation in the slope of the S
  from innovation to innovation
• some new ideas diffuse relatively rapidly and the
  S-curve is quite steep.
• Other innovations have a slower rate of adoption,
  and the S-curve is more gradual, with a slope
  that is relatively lazy.

45
Rate of Adoption

• There are also differences in the rate of
  adoption for the same innovation in different
  social systems.

46
A Social System

• Defined as a set of interrelated units that are
  engaged in joint problem-solving to accomplish a
  common goal.
• This sharing of a common objective binds the
  system together.

47
A Social System

• The social structure of the system affects the
  innovations diffusion in several ways. Here we
  deal with
• how the systems social structure affects
  diffusion,
• the effect of norms on diffusion,
• the roles of opinion leaders

48
Social Structure

• To the extent that the units in a social system
  are not all identical in their behaviour,
  structure exists in the system.
• Structure - the patterned arrangements of the
  units in a system.

49
Social Structure

• Structure gives regularity and stability to human
  behaviour in a system it allows one to predict
  behaviour with some degree of accuracy.
• Structure represents one type of information, in
  that it decreases uncertainty.

50
Social Structure

• An illustration of this predictability - is
  structure in a bureaucratic organisation. Here
  there is a well-developed social structure,
  consisting of hierarchical positions, giving
  officials in higher-ranked positions the right to
  issue orders to individuals of lower rank. They
  expect their orders to be carried out.
• Such patterned social relationships among the
  members of a system constitute social structure,
  one type of structure.

51
Social Structure

• We can also have a communication structure,
  defined as
• the differentiated elements that can be
  recognized in the patterned communication flows
  in a system.
• Communications structures are interpersonal
  networks linking a systems members, determining
  who interacts with whom and under what
  circumstances.

52
Social Structure

• A complete lack of communication structure in a
  system would be represented by a situation in
  which each individual talked with equal
  probability to each other member of the system.
• Class in society can be regarded as both a social
  structure but also a communications structure.

53
Social Structure

• Regularized patterns of communication within a
  system predict, in part, the behaviour of
  individual members of the social system,
  including when they adopt an innovation.
• Thus it is difficult to study how innovations
  spread without some knowledge of the social
  structures in which potential adopters are
  located.

54
SYSTEM NORMS AND DIFFUSION.

• Norms are the established behaviour patterns
  for the members of a social system. They define
  a range of tolerable behaviour and serve as a
  guide or a standard for the members behaviour in
  a social system.
• The norms of a system tell an individual what
  behaviour is expected. Thus a systems norms can
  be a barrier to change.
• Norms can operate at the level of a nation, a
  religious community, an organisation, or a local
  system like a village.

55
OPINION LEADERS

• Most innovative member of a system often
  perceived as a deviant from the social system
• Thus is accorded low credibility by the average
  members of the system.
• Thus their role in diffusion is likely to be
  limited.

56
OPINION LEADERS

• Other members of the system function as opinion
  leaders. They provide information and advice
  about innovations to many in the system.
• They are opinion leaders

57
OPINION LEADERS

• Opinion leadership is the degree to which an
  individual is able to influence other
  individuals attitudes/behaviour.
• This leadership is not a function of the
  individuals formal position.
• Opinion leadership is earned and maintained by
  the individuals
• technical competence,
• social accessibility, and
• conformity to the systems norms.

58
OPINION LEADERS

• Thus when the social system is oriented to
  change, the opinion leaders are quite innovative
  but when the systems norms are opposed to
  change, the behaviour of the leaders also
  reflects this norm

59
OPINION LEADERS

• . When compared with their followers opinion
  leaders are
• are more exposed to all forms of external
  communication,
• have somewhat higher social status, and
• are more innovative (although the exact degree of
  innovativeness depends, in part, on the systems
  norms).

60
OPINION LEADERS

• Opinion leaders occupy an influential position in
  their systems communication structure
• They are at the centre of interpersonal
  communication networks - interconnected
  individuals linked by patterned flows of
  information.