Diffusion of Innovations
Classic book (in its fifth edition) about how new ideas spread. I like how Rogers has a set of “generalizations” about his ideas. These are things that might not be proven by statistics but feel generally correct. A lot of network theory, but a very good read. Just the right mixture of density and readability.
Reread
Added on
I went deep on this book during my re-read. I spent about two weeks and ran a couple highlighters dry on it.
There are a lot of rules, laws and models suggestion by this book. If you’re going to distill the book down to its basics, I think you need to understand two of them.
These are the five stages in the Innovation-Decision Process.
- Knowledge
- Persuasion
- Decision
- Implementation
- Confirmation
I find it interesting that he continues with 4 and 5, past the actual decision. But I suppose that 4 can happen, then get rejected and removed at 5.
And these are the five categories of adopters:
- Innovators
- Early Adopters
- Early Majority
- Late Majority
- Laggards
I remember this from Crossing the Chasm (apparently it originated in the first edition of this book), where the author placed the “chasm” between 2 and 3. Getting solidly into 3 is apparently very difficult – the entire book was devoted to that gap.
Generalizations
Almost every chapter has “generalizations” sprinkled throughout it. I noted in my original read eight years ago that I liked this style.
For this reading, I dictated all the generalizations. I read them allowed and had my Mac turn them into text, and this had a weird effect, in the sense that I was forced to say them all aloud, which made me acknowledge and consider them in a different way.
Some generalizations are wildly obvious, but that’s the nature of the book, really. It’s a seminal text, in its fifth edition, and how it got that way, I think, is because it took the lead in defining these terms back when it was first published in 1962.
(Note that were no generalizations in chapter 4, for some reason. And earlier chapters were about innovation diffusion research itself, which was of less interest to me.)
The Innovation-Decision Process
Many times, the author uses the word “cosmopolite.” This word means likely what you think it means:
A cosmopolite is a person who is sophisticated and well-traveled, often considered a “citizen of the world.”
However, I couldn’t find much definition for the word in a business sense. To me, the word simply meant that the person was well-informed and knowledgeable about their field, though those characteristics were also measured in other ways (mass media exposure, for example; for another example of seeming overlap, see generalizations 8-2 to 8-8).
Earlier knowers of an innovation have more education than do later knowers
Earlier knowers of an innovation have higher social status than do later knowers
Earlier knowers of an innovation have more exposure to mass media channels of communication then do later knowers
Earlier knowers of an innovation have more exposure to interpersonal channels than do later knowers
Earlier knowers of an innovation have more contact with change agents than do later knowers
Earlier knowers of an innovation have more social participation than do later knowers
Earlier knowers of an innovation are more cosmopolite than are later knowers
Re-invention occurs at the implementation stage for many innovations and for many adopters
A higher degree of re-invention lead leads to a faster rate of adoption of an innovation
A higher degree of re-invention leads to a higher degree of sustainability of an innovation
Later adopters are more likely to discontinue innovations than are earlier adopters
Adopter stages exist in the innovation decision process
Mass media channels are relatively more important at the knowledge stage and interpersonal channels are relatively more important at these persuasion stage in the innovation decision process
Cosmopolite channels are relatively more important at the knowledge stage and localite channels are relatively more important at the persuasion stage in the innovation decision process
Mass media channels are relatively more important than interpersonal channels for earlier adopters than for later adopters
Cosmopolite channels are relatively more important than localite channels for earlier than for later adopters
The rate of awareness knowledge for an innovation is more rapid than its rate of adoption
Earlier adopters have a shorter innovation decision than do later adopters.
Attributes of Innovations and their Rate of Adoption
The relative advantage of an innovation, as perceived by members of a social system, is positively related to its rate of adoption.
The compatibility of an innovation, as perceived by members of a social system, is positively related to its rate of adoption
The complexity of an innovation, as perceived by members of a social system, is negatively related to its rate of adoption.
The trialability of an innovation, as perceived by the members of racial social system, is positively related to its rate of adoption.
The observability of an innovation, as perceived members of a social system, is positively related to its rate of adoption
Innovativeness and Adopter Categories
Adopter distributions follow a bell-shaped curve over time and approach normality.
Earlier adopters are no different from later adopters in age.
Earlier adopters have more years of formal education than do later adopters.
Earlier adopters are more likely to be literate than are later adopters.
Earlier adopters have higher social status than do later adopters.
Earlier adopters have a greater degree of upward social mobility than do later adopters.
Earlier adopters have larger sized units (farms, schools companies and so on) then do later adopters.
Earlier adopters have greater empathy than do later adopters.
Earlier adopters may be less dogmatic than our later adopters.
Earlier adopters have a greater ability to deal with abstractions than do later adopters.
Earlier adopters have greater rationality than do later adopters.
Earlier adopters have more intelligence than due later adopters.
Earlier adopters have a more favorable attitude toward change than do later adopters.
Earlier adopters are better able to cope with uncertainty and risk than our later adopters.
Earlier adopters have a more favorable attitude towards science than do later adopters.
Earlier adopters are less fatalistic than our later adopters.
Earlier adopters have higher aspirations for formal education, higher status, occupations, and so on then do later adopters.
Earlier adopters have more social participation than due later adopters.
Earlier adopters are more highly interconnected through interpersonal networks in their social system than our later adopters.
Earlier adopters are more cosmopolite than our later adopters.
Earlier adopters have more contact with agents than due later adopters.
Earlier adopters have a greater exposure to mass media communication channels than do later adapter.
Earlier adopters have greater exposure to interpersonal communication channels, then do later adopters.
Earlier adopters seek information about innovations, more actively than do later adopters.
Earlier adopters have greater knowledge of innovations than do later adopters.
Earlier adopters have a higher degree of opinion leadership than do later adopters
Diffusion Networks
Interpersonal diffusion networks are mostly homophilous.
When interpersonal diffusion networks are heterophilous, followers seek opinion leaders of higher socioeconomic status with more formal education with a greater degree of mass media exposure, who are more cosmopolite, have greater contact with change agents and are more innovative.
Opinion leaders have greater exposure to mass media than their followers.
Opinion leaders are more cosmopolite than their followers.
Opinion leaders have greater contact with change agents than their followers.
Opinion leaders have greater social participation than their followers.
Opinion leaders have higher socioeconomic status than their followers.
Opinion leaders are more innovative than their followers.
When a social systems norms favor change, opinion leaders are more innovative, but when the systems norms do not favor change, opinion, leaders are not especially innovative.
The network interconnectedness of an individual in a social system is positively related to the individuals innovativeness.
The information exchange potential of communication network links is negatively related to their degree of (1) communication proximity and (2) homophily.
Individuals tend to be linked to others who are close to them in physical distance and who are relatively homophile in social characteristics.
An individual is more likely to adopt an innovation if more of the other individuals in his or her personal network have adopted previously.
The Change Agent
The author defines “change agent” as a person who proactively influences the change in a positive direction. This is a person acting in such a way to encourage the change.
Change agents success in securing the adoption of innovations by clients is positively related to the extent of change agent effort in contacting clients.
Change agents success in securing the adoption of innovations by clients is positively related to a client orientation rather than a change agency orientation
Change agent success in securing the adoption of innovations by clients is positively related to the degree to a diffusion program is compatible with clients needs
Change agents success in securing the adoption of innovations by clients is positively related to empathy with clients
Contact with change agents is positively related to higher socioeconomic status among clients
Contact with change agents is positively related to greater social participation by clients
Contact with a change agents is positively related to formal education among clients
Contact with change agent is positively related to cosmopoliteness among clients
Change agents, success in securing the adoption of innovations by clients as positively related to their homophily with clients
Change agent success in securing the adoption of innovations by clients is positively related to credibility in the clients eyes
Change agents success in securing the adoption of innovations by clients as positively related to the extent that he or she works through opinion leaders
Change agent success in securing the adoption of innovations by clients is positively related to increasing client’s ability to evaluate innovations
Innovation in Organizations
Larger organizations are more innovative
Each of the organizational structure variables may be related to innovation in one direction during the initiation phases of the innovation process and in the opposite direction during the implementation phases.
The presence of an innovation champion contributes to the success of innovation in an organization.
A performance gap can trigger the innovation process.
Both the innovation and the organization usually change in the innovation process in an organization.
Consequences of Innovations
The effects of an innovation usually cannot be managed so as to separate the desirable from the undesirable consequences.
The undesirable, indirect, and unanticipated consequences of an innovation, usually go together as do the desirable, direct, and anticipated consequence.
Change agents more easily anticipate the form and function of an innovation for their clients than its meaning.
The consequences of the diffusion of innovations, usually widen the socioeconomic gap between the earlier and later adopting categories.
The consequences of the diffusion of innovation, usually widen the socioeconomic gap between the audience segments previously high and low and socioeconomic status.
A system’s social structure partly determines the equality versus inequality of an innovation consequences.
When special efforts are made by a diffusion agency, it is possible to narrow, or at least not to widen the social economic, a gap in a social system.
Sidebar Examples
Also of interest in the book was a series of prominent sidebars, which detailed real life cases of either successful or unsuccessful innovations. Here are descriptions of about half of them – they’re pervasive, and some go on for multiple pages.
A failed attempt to introduce water boiling in a Peruvian village which suffered due to traditional beliefs about “hot” and “cold” foods.
The British Navy took hundreds of years to adopt citrus consumption to cure scurvy because competing theories sowed confusion about the fundamental causes of it.
The success of kindergarten around the world due partly to teachers who adapt the style and curriculum to local values and customs.
Speed of adoption of the drug tetracycline was directly correlated to the size of a physician’s personal network (this was discussed in multiple sidebars)
The role of “mavens” in the promotion of electric cars.
A discussion of the non-obvious systemic and social reasons for consuming polluted water in Egypt.
A description of the negative effects of adopting in-vitro sex determination equipment in countries where sons are preferred over daughters.
The battle to convince Toshiba executives of the value of the laptop computer.
The value the observability of rat corpses in the adoption of Wafarin.
The secondary effects of food production automation in Africa on the lives of women, and the collective effort of communities to purchase and implement it.
The characteristics of mobile phones that led to their rapid adoption.
A comparison of the historic rides of Paul Reverse and William Dawes, and the interpersonal networks that contributed to the success of Revere’s ride compared to Dawes’s.
John Snow’s mapping of the cholera epidemic in 19th-century London.
The rapid adoption of the max machine in the 1980s despite having been first invented 150 years prior.
The role of individual champions in the marketing and adoption of best-selling books.
The use of unethical coercion in the adoption of birth control in Indonesia.
The lack of sustainability of innovations of chicken raising in Nigeria which caused a three-year boom, but harbored a problem which irreparably destroyed all progress.
The failure of an superficially successful express lane experiment in Santa Monica due to perceptions and poor communication.
The breakdown of social and community structured due to the introduction of snowmobiles in rural Finland.
Book Info
- Author
- Everett M. Rogers
- Year
- Pages
- 576
- Acquired
- I have read this book. According to my records, I completed it on .
- A softcover copy of this book is currently in my home library.