The document outlines the adoption process of innovations, detailing stages from problem observation to decision-making among different adopter categories such as innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards, each with distinct characteristics. It explores factors affecting adoption, including socioeconomic status, personality traits, communication behaviors, and innovation attributes like compatibility and complexity, while highlighting the social influences that drive or inhibit adoption. Additionally, it discusses the consequences of innovation adoption and the need for further research in this area.

1. adoption
BY
TVM/17-17

2. ADOPTION?
It is a mental process through which an
individual passes from first hearing about an
innovation to final adoption, or it is a decision
to make full use of an innovation as the best
course of action available.
DIFFUSION?
It is the process by which an innovation is
communication through certain channels over
time among the members of a social system

3. INNOVATION?
It is an idea, practice or object that is perceived
as new by an individual or other unit of
adoption.
ADOPTION PROCESS
Adoption is essentially a decision making
process which may be divided into a sequence
of stages with a distinct type of activity
occurring during each stage.

4. The sequential stages are as follows
1. Observing the problem
2. Making analysis of it.
3. Deciding the available courses of action.
4. Taking one course at a time
5. Accepting the consequences of the decision.

7. ADOPTER CATEGORIES
• Not all individuals in a social system adopt an
innovation at the same time.
• Rather, they adopt in a time sequence and
they may be classified into adopter categories
on the basis of when they first begin using a
new idea

8. Classifying Adopter Categories on the Basis of
Innovativeness
• The most innovative individuals were termed
progressists, hightriers, experimentals,
lighthouses, advance scouts and
ultraadopters.
• Least innovative individuals were called
drones, parochials and diehards.

10. Innovators- 2.5% (technology enthusiasts)
• Require the shortest adoption period of all the
categories
• Venturesome and risk takers
• Understand and apply complex technical
knowledge
• Appreciate technology for its own sake
• Motivated by idea of being a change agent
• Gate keepers for the next group of adopters
• Recruit to be peer educators

11. Early adopter-13.5% (visionaries)
• Serve as opinion leaders
• Have a natural desire to be trend setters
• Serve as role models within their social system
• Want to revolutionize competitive rules in
their industry
• Attracted by high risk/ high rewards.
• Not necessarily cost sensitive.
• Provide excellent tester subjects to trial the
innovation.

12. Early majority- 34% (pragmatists)
• Interact frequently with peers, deliberate
contact.
• Serve as opinion leaders but late in the
process
• comfortable with only evolutionary changes
in the practices to gain productivity
enhancements.
• Want proven applications, reliable services.
• Donot like complexity.
• Prudent: want to stay with in budget
• Make slow steady progress.

13. Late majority- 34% (conservatives)
• Respond to peer pressure
• Respond to economic necessity
• Skeptical, cautious
• Often technologically shy.
• Very cost sensitive
• Require bullet proof solutions
• Motivated only by need to keep up with
competitors or proven trends in their industry
• Rely on single, trusted advisor
• Easily influenced by laggards

14. Laggards -16% (skeptics)
• Isolated from opinion leaders
• Point of reference is in the past.
• Suspicious of innovations, innovation- decision
process is lengthy.
• Resources are limited for them
• People are traditional.
• Want to maintain status quo.
• Think technology is a hindrance to operations
• usually invest in technology only if all other
alternatives worse

15. CHARACTERISTICS OF ADOPTER CATEGORIES
(1) socioeconomic status
(2) personality variables
(3) Communication behavior

16. SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS
• Earlier adopters are no different from later
adopters in age. About half of many diffusion
studies on this subject show no relationship, a few
found that earlier adopters are younger, and some
indicate they are older.
• Earlier adopters have more years of formal
education than the later adopters.

17. • Earlier adopters have higher social status than
the later adopters. Status is indicated by such
variables as income, level of living, possession
of wealth, occupational prestige, self-
perceived identification with a social class,
and the like.
• Earlier adopters have a greater degree of
upward social mobility than the later
adopters. Earlier adopters have large-sized
units (farms, school, companies and so on)
than the later adopters.

18. PERSONALITY VARIABLES
• Earlier adopters have greater empathy than the
later adopters. Empathy is the ability of individual
to project himself or herself into the role of
another person.
• Dogmatism is the degree to which an individual
has a relatively closed belief system that is a set
of beliefs which are strongly held.
• Earlier adopters have a greater ability to deal with
abstractions than the later adopters.

19. • Earlier adopters have a greater rationality than
the later adopters. Rationality is use of the most
effective means to reach a given end.
• Earlier adopters have a more favorable attitude
towards change than the later adopters.
• Earlier adopters are better able to cope with
uncertainty and risk than are later adopters.
• Earlier adopters have a more favorable attitude
towards science than the later adopters.

20. • Earlier adopters are less fatalistic than are later
adopters. Fatalism is the degree to which an
individual perceives a lake of ability to control
his/her future..
• Earlier adopters have higher aspirations (for
formal education, higher status, occupations, and
so on) than do later adopters.
• Earlier adopters have more intelligence than the
later adopters

21. COMMUNICATION BEHAVIOUR
• Earlier adopters have more social participation
than the later adopters.
• Earlier adopters are more highly interconnected
through interpersonal networks in their social
system than are later adopters. Connectedness is
the degree to which an individual is linked to
others.
• Earlier adopters have more cosmopolite than are
later adopters.

22. • Innovators’ interpersonal networks are more
likely to be outside, rather than within, their
system.
• They travel widely and are involved in matters
beyond the boundaries of their local system.
• Earlier adopters have more contact with change
agents than the later adopters.
• Earlier adopters have greater exposure to mass
media and inter-personal communication
channels than the later adopters.
• Earlier adopters seek information about
innovations more actively than the later
adopters.

23. • Earlier adopters have greater knowledge of
innovations than the later adopters.
• Earlier adopters have a higher degree of opinion
leadership than do later adopters.

24. FACTORS AFFECTING ADOPTION PROCESS
• COST AND ECONOMIC RETURN
-practices which require high input tend to
adopt slowly
-practices with quick returns on
investment tend to adopt rapidly
-practices which produce high returns for
money invested tend to adopt more rapidly.
• COMPATIBILITY:
-a practice that is consistent with existing
beliefs will be accepted more rapidly than one
that is not.

25. • COMPLEXITY:
-new ideas which are simple are adopted
quickly than complex ides
• VISIBILITY:
-the more visible the practice and its
results, the more rapid is its adoption.
• DIVISIBILITY:
- a practice that can be tried on a limited
basis will generally be adopted more rapidly
than one that cannot

26. Attributes of innovation
• Relative advantage: The degree to which an
innovation is perceived as better than the idea it
supersedes.
• Compatibility: The degree to which an innovation
is perceived as being consistent with the existing
values, past experiences and needs of the
potential adopters (situational and cultural
compatibility).
• Complexity: The degree to which an innovation is
perceived as difficult to understand and use

27. • Trialability: The degree to which an innovation
may be experimented on a limited basis.
• Observability: The degree to which the results
of an innovation are visible.
• Predictability: It refers to the degree of
certainty of receiving expected benefits from
the adoption of an innovation.

28. RATE OF ADOPTION
• The rate of adoption is defined as the relative
speed at which participants adopt an innovation.
Rate is usually measured by the length of time
required for a certain percentage of the members
of a social system to adopt an innovation.
• The rates of adoption for innovations are
determined by an individual’s adopter category.
In general, individuals who first adopt an
innovation require a shorter adoption period
(adoption process) when compared to late
adopters.

29. • 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.”
• Within the adoption curve at some point the
innovation reaches critical mass. This is when the
number of individual adopters ensures that the
innovation is self-sustaining.

30. • Rate of adoption is determined by the
following formula.
• Rate of adoption = Number of adopting in a
year ÷ Number yet to adopt in that year.
• Example of the rate of adoption in 1938 is
0.86 when 47 farmers adopted only & 55
were left to adopt .

32. • 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.
• There are also differences in the rate of adoption
for the same innovation in different social
systems.

33. • The social structure of the system affects the
innovation’s diffusion in several ways.
• Here we deal with
– how the system’s social structure affects diffusion
– the effect of norms on diffusion
– the roles of opinion leaders

34. 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.
• 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 system’s members,
determining who interacts with whom and under
what circumstances.

35. 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 system’s 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.

36. 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.
• Opinion leadership is the degree to which an
individual is able to influence other individuals’
attitudes/behaviour.

37. • This leadership is not a function of the
individual’s formal position.
• Opinion leadership is earned and maintained by
the individual’s
– technical competence,
– social accessibility, and
– conformity to the system’s norms

38. SOURCES OF INFORMATION
• Advertising and media stories may spread
information about new innovations ;but its
conversations that spread adoption.
• Because the adoption of new products (or)
services involves risk & uncertainty.
• Its usually only people we personals know &
trust & who we know have successfully adopted
the innovation themselves .

39. • Early adopters are exception to this
• But now a days there is change in the relative
importance of information sources in the
later stage of purchase decision process
person seeking information from another
sources.
• Examples of discussion forum & chat rooms &
blogs on web.

40. CONSEQUENCES OF ADOPTION OF
INNOVATIONS
• Both positive and negative outcomes are possible
when an individual or organization chooses to
adopt a particular innovation.
• Rogers states that this area needs further research
because of the biased positive attitude that is
associated with innovation.
• Rogers lists three categories for consequences:
desirable vs. undesirable, direct vs. indirect, and
anticipated vs. unanticipated.

41. • Desirable vs. Undesirable: depending on whether
the effects of an innovation are functional or
dysfunctional.
• Direct vs. Indirect: depending on whether the
changes occur in immediate response to an
innovation or as a second order result of the
results of direct consequences of an innovation.
• Anticipated vs. Unanticipated: depending on
whether the changes are recognized and
intended by the members of a social system or
not.

42. THANKYOU