Diffusion of Innovations by Everett M. Rogers

Chapter 5 - The Innovation-Decision Process•The innovation-decision process is the process through which an individual (or other decision-making unit) passes from gaining

initial knowledge of an innovation, to forming an attitude toward the innovation, to making a decision to adopt or reject, to implementation of the new idea, and to confirmation of this decision. This process consists of a series of choices and actions over time through which an individual or a system evaluates a new idea and decides whether or not to incorporate the innovation into ongoing practice. This behavior consists essentially of dealing with the uncertainty that is inherently involved in deciding about a new alternative to an idea previously in existence. The perceived newness of an innovation, and the uncertainty associated with this newness, is a distinctive aspect of innovation decision making (168).

•The innovation-decision process consists of five stages:

1. Knowledge occurs when an individual (or other decision-making unit) is exposed to an innovation’s existence and gains an understanding of how it functions (169).

2. Persuasion occurs when an individual forms a favorable or an unfavorable attitude towards the innovation (169).

3. Decision takes place when an individual engages in activities that lead to a choice to adopt or reject the innovation (169).

4. Implementation occurs when an individual put a new idea into use (169).

5. Confirmation takes place when an individual seeks reinforcement of an innovation-decision already made, but he or she may reverse this previous decision if exposed to conflicting messages about the innovation (169).

The Knowledge Stage•Some observers claim that an individual plays a relatively passive role when being exposed to awareness-knowledge about an innovation. If an individual becomes aware of an innovation by accident, the individual could not actively the innovation (171).

•Other individuals may gain awareness-knowledge about an innovation through behavior that they initiate, so their awareness-knowledge is not a passive activity. Individuals tend to expose themselves to ideas that are in accordance with their interests, needs, and existing attitudes. Individuals consciously or unconsciously avoid messages that are in conflict with their existing predispositions. This tendency is called selective exposure, defined as the tendency to attend to communications messages that are consistent with the individual’s existing attitudes and beliefs (171).

•Hassinger (1959) argued that individuals seldom expose themselves to messages about an innovation unless they first feel a need for the innovation, and that even if individuals are exposed to innovation messages, such exposure will have little effect unless the innovation is perceived as relevant to the individual’s needs and is consistent with the individual’s attitudes and beliefs.

Generalizations 5-1 through 5-18

•5-1: Earlier knowers of an innovation have more education that do later knowers (174).

•5-2: Earlier knowers of an innovation have higher social status that do late knowers (174).

•5-3: Earlier knowers of an innovation have more exposure to mass media channels of communications than do later knowers (174).

•5-4: Earlier knowers of an innovation have more exposure to interpersonal channels than do later knowers (174).

•5-5: Earlier knowers of an innovation have more contact with change agents than do later knowers (174).

•5-6: Earlier knowers of an innovation have more social participation than do later knowers (174).

•5-7: Earlier knowers of an innovation are more cosmopolite than are later knowers (174).

•5-8: Re-invention occurs at the implementation stage for many innovations and for many adopters (183).

•5-9: A higher degree if re-invention leads to a faster rate of adoption of an innovation (183).

•5-10: A higher degree of re-invention leads to a higher degree of sustainability of an innovation (183).

•5-11: Later adopter are more likely to discontinue innovations than are earlier adopters (191).

•5-12: Stages exist in the innovation-decision process (198).

•5-13: Mass media channels are relatively more important at the knowledge stage, and interpersonal channels are relatively more important at the persuasion stage in the innovation-decision process (205).

•5-14: 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 (207).

•5-15: Mass Media channels are relatively more important than interpersonal channels for earlier adopters than for later adopters (211).

•5-16: Cosmopolite channels are relatively more important than localite channels for earlier adopters than for later adopters (213).

•5-17: The rate of awareness-knowledge for an innovation is more rapid than its rate of adoption (214).

•5-18: Earlier adopters have a shorter innovation-decision period than do later adopters (214).

Cont.•This process is selective perception, defined as the tendency to interpret communication messages in terms of the individual’s existing attitudes and beliefs (171).

•Selective exposure and selective perception act as particularly tight shutters on the windows of our minds in the case of the innovation messages, because such ideas are new. We cannot have consistent and favorable ideas about ideas that we have not previously encountered. There is much in the ideas of selective exposure and selective perception to support Hassinger’s viewpoint that the need for an innovation usually precedes awareness-knowledge of the innovation (172).

•How are needs created? A need is a state of dissatisfaction or frustration that occurs when an individual’s desires outweigh the individual’s actualities. An individual may develop a need when he or she learns that an innovation exists. Therefore, innovations can lead to needs, as well as vice versa (172).

Three Types of Knowledge About an Innovation:

•Awareness-knowledge, information that an innovation exists. Awareness-knowledge may motivate an individual to seek a second and third type of knowledge: “how-to” knowledge and principles knowledge. Such information seeking is concentrated at the knowledge stage of the innovation-decision process, but it may also occur at the persuasion and decision stages (173).

•How-to knowledge, consists of information necessary to use an innovation properly. The adopter must understand what quantity of an innovation to secure, how to use it correctly, and so on (173).

•Principles-knowledge consists of information dealing with the functioning principles underlying how an innovation works (173).

The Persuasion Stage:•At the persuasion stage in the innovation-decision process, the individual forms a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward the innovation (174).

•Attitude is a relatively enduring organization of an individual’s beliefs about an object that predisposes his or her actions. Whereas the mental activity at the knowledge stage was mainly cognitive (or knowing), the main type of thinking at the persuasion stage is affective (or feeling) (174-175).

•A preventive innovation is a new idea that an individual adopts in order to avoid the possible occurrence of some unwanted event in the future (176).

•The persuasion-adoption discrepancy for preventative innovations can sometimes be closed by a cue-to-action an event occurring at a time that crystallizes a favorable attitude into overt behavioral change.

Cont.The Decision Stage:•The decision stage in the innovation-decision process takes place when an individual engages in activities that lead to a choice to adopt or reject an innovation (177).

•Adoption is a decision to make full use of an innovation as the best course of action available (177).

•Rejection is a decision not to adopt an innovation (177).

•Discontinuance is defined as a decision to reject an innovation after having previously adopted. Two different types of rejection are:

1) Active rejection, which consists of considering adoption of the innovation (includes its trial) but then deciding not to adopt it (178).

2) Passive rejection (also called nonadoption), which consists of never really considering the use of the innovation (178).

•Individualistic culture are those in which the individual’s goal takes precedence over the collectivity’s goals (178-179).

•Collectivistic cultures are those in which the collectivity’s goal takes precedence over those of the individual (Rogers and Steinfatt, 1999) (179).

The Implementation Stage:•Implementation occurs when an individual puts an innovation to use. Until the implementation stage, the innovation-decision process has been strictly mental exercise of thinking and deciding. But implementation involves overt behavior change as the new idea is actually put into practice. Implementation usually follows the decision stage rather directly, unless it is held up by some logistical problem, such as temporary unavailability of the innovation (179).

Re-Invention:

•Diffusion scholars now recognize the concept of re-invention, defined as the degree to which an innovation is changed or modified by a user in the process of its adoption and implementation (180).

•Invention is the process by which a new idea is discovered or created, while the adoption of an innovation is a decision to make full use of an innovation as the best course of action available. Thus the adoption of an innovation is the process of using an existing idea (181).

•One method of measuring the degree of re-invention is to identify the number of elements in each implementation of an innovation that are similar to, or different from, the “main-line” or “core” version of the innovation, such as that promoted by the change agency (184).

Cont.•Most innovations can be broken down into their constituent elements, which can then be used to measure the degree of re-invention from a core configuration. The core elements of an innovation consists of the features that are responsible for its effectiveness (184).

•Re-invention can be beneficial to adopters of an innovation. Flexibility in the process of adopting an innovation may reduce mistakes and encourage customization of the innovation to fit it more appropriately to local and /or changing conditions. As a result of re-invention, an innovation may be more appropriate in matching an adopter’s preexisting problems and more responsive to new problems that arise during the innovation-decision process (185).

The Confirmation Stage:•At the confirmation stage the individual seeks reinforcement for the innovation-decision already made, and many reverse this decision if exposed to conflicting messages about the innovation. At the confirmation stage, the individual seeks to avoid a state of dissonance or to reduce it if it occurs (189).

•Human behavior change is often motivated in part by a state of internal disequilibrium or dissonance, an uncomfortable state of mind that an individual seeks to reduce or eliminate. A dissonant individual is motivated to reduce this condition by changing his or her knowledge, attitude, or actions (189).

Discontinuance:

•Discontinuance is a decision to reject an innovation after previously adopting it (190).

•Two types of discontinuance are: (1) replacement and (2) disenchantment. A replacement discontinuance is a decision to reject an idea in order to adopt a better idea that supersedes it. A disenchantment discontinuance is a decision to reject an idea as a result of dissatisfaction with its performance. (190).

Process Versus Variance Research:

•Process research is defined as a type of data gathering and analysis that seeks to determine the sequence of a set of events over time (Mohr, 1978, 1982). Usually such process research is conducted using qualitative research methods, which seek to gain insight and understanding of human behavior. Variance research is a type of data gathering and analysis that consists of determining the covariances (or correlations) among a set of variables, but not their time order. Such variance research usually is conducted using quantitative research methods, which measure variables by assigning numerical values to behaviors (196).

Cont.The Hierarchy-of -Effects

•The basic notion of a hierarchy of communications effects is that an individual usually must past from knowledge change to overt behavior change in a cumulative sequence of stages that are generally parallel to the stages in the innovation-decision process. Communication effects thus occur in a hierarchy for most individuals who pass through stages in the innovation-decision process, with different communication channels playing a different role in causing different effects (198).

Stages-of-Change:

•Prochaska, DiClemente, and Norcross (1992) defined the five stages-of-change (S-O-C) as follows:

1) Precontemplation, when an individual is aware that a problem exists and begins to think about overcoming it (200).

2) Contemplation, when an individual is aware that a problem exists and is seriously thinking about overcoming it but has not yet made a commitment to take action. (200).

3) Preparation, the stage at which an individual intends to take action in the immediate future but has not yet done so (200).

4) Action, when an individual changes behavior in order to overcome the problem (200).

5) Maintenance, the stage at which an individual consolidates and continues the behavior change that was made previously (200).

Communication Channels by Stages of the Innovation-Decision Process:

Categorizing Communication Channels:

•A source is an individual or an institution that originates a message. A channel is the means by which a message gets from the source to the receiver. We categorize communication channels as (1) interpersonal versus mass media and (2) localite versus cosmopolite (205).

•Mass Media channels are means of transmitting messages that involve a mass medium, such as radio, television, newspapers, and so on, which enables a source of one or a few individuals to reach an audience of many. The mass media can:

1) Reach a large audience rapidly (205).

2) Create knowledge and spread information (205).

3) Change weakly held attitudes (205).

•The formation and change of strongly held attitudes, however, is accomplished mainly by interpersonal channels. Interpersonal channels involve face-to-face exchange between two or more individuals (205).

Cont.

•What can interpersonal communications channels do best? (1) Provide a two-way exchange of information. (2) Persuade an individual to form or to change a strongly held attitude (205).

The Innovation-Decision Period:•The innovation-decision period is the length of time required for an individual or organization to pass through the innovation-decision process. The length of the innovation-decision period is usually measured from first knowledge to the decision to adopt or reject, although in a strict sense it should be measured to the time of confirmation (213).

The Rate of Awareness-Knowledge and Rate of Adoption:

•Knowledge proceeds at a more rapid rate than does adoption, which suggest that relatively later adopters have a longer average innovation-decision period than do earlier adopters. Innovations vary in their average length of the innovation-decision period (214).

The Length of the Innovation-Decision Period by Adopter Category:

Why do innovators require a shorter innovation-decision period? Innovators have more favorable attitudes towards new ideas (this is venturesomenes) and so communication messages about innovations face less resistance. Innovators may also have a shorter innovation-decision period because (1) they utilize more technically accurate sources and channels about innovations, such as direct contact with scientists, and (2) they place higher credibility in these sources than does the average individual (215).