Diffusion of Innovation Theory

The diffusion of innovations theory describes how new scientific, technical, and other developments diffuse throughout civilizations and cultures before being widely used. The diffusion of innovations hypothesis aims to explain how and why new concepts and methods spread across potentially lengthy durations. In 1962, Everett Rogers popularized the theory in his book 'Diffusion of Innovations'.

Everett Rogers (1931 – 2004) was a renowned professor, researcher, adviser, and former newspaper writer and editor. At Iowa State University of Science and Technology, he received his PhD in sociology and statistics in 1957. 

According to Everett Rogers, Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system. And Innovation is an idea, practice, or object perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption.

The Theory

The diffusion of innovation theory examines how people make decisions and accept new, inventive ideas in society. The diffusion process involves channels of communication such as interpersonal communication and mainstream media. The concept of human capital is crucial to the idea. In order to achieve development and sustainability, innovations should be broadly embraced, claims the notion. Wherever the theory was used in practice, the culture's capacity for adaptation was highly important. The key participants in the theory of the dissemination of innovations are:

Innovators: Risk-takers and pioneers of fresh ideas are known as innovators.

Early adopters: Those who are eager to test out new technology and demonstrate their value to society.

Early majority: Members of the general public who open the door for the adoption of an invention in modern society.

Late majority: The late majority is a subset of the broader population that follows the early majority in incorporating the invention into their way of life.

Laggards: Individuals who accept novel ideas and goods more slowly than the general community. They are largely risk-averse and steadfast in their methods of doing things, which contributes to this. When an innovation becomes widely accepted in society, it becomes hard for people to go about their everyday lives (and jobs) without it. They are consequently compelled to start utilizing it.

Rogers pointed out four elements of diffusion of innovations.

Innovations: anything that a person perceives as novel, such as ideas, practices, or products. It could also be a drive to experiment or affect societal change.

Channel: The communication channels are used to transfer messages from one person to another. Communication is the primary means by which innovations spread among individuals. It can come in many different forms, such as word-of-mouth, SMS, various literary forms, etc.

Time: It refers how long it takes for a society's citizens to accept new developments. It is the amount of time individuals need to adjust to new concepts. As an illustration, think of how long it took for consumers to adopt mobile phones once they were first brought to the market.

Social System: A network of interconnected individuals working together to solve issues and achieve a shared objective. The term "social system" refers to all the different elements that make up society, including religion, institutions, and social groupings.

Further, Roger describes the Mechanism of Diffusion of Innovation Theory through the five steps listed below,

Knowledge: Because they lack information or knowledge about the invention, those who have been exposed to it have shown little interest.

Persuasion: A person is more interested in the new invention and is always looking for additional information about it.

Decision: At this stage, a person weighs the advantages and disadvantages of the innovation before deciding whether to accept or reject it. One of the most challenging steps is identifying the evidence, according to Roger.

Implementation: A person makes an attempt to determine the innovation's dependencies and to learn more about the innovation's use and potential future.

Confirmation: A person makes a final choice or adheres to it, continuing to exploit the invention to its fullest extent.

Limitations

The diffusion of innovation theory has a number of drawbacks, including the following:

1. The adopter categories and a large portion of the supporting data for this theory were not generated with adoption of novel habits or health improvements expressly in mind. It also did not originate in the field of public health.
2. It does not encourage the adoption of a participatory strategy for public health programs.
3. Adopting habits rather than stopping or avoiding behaviors is more effective.
4. It doesn't consider a person's resources or social network while encouraging them to embrace the new habit (or innovation).

This theory has been used successfully in many fields including communication, agriculture, public health, criminal justice, social work, and marketing. In public health, Diffusion of Innovation Theory is used to accelerate the adoption of important public health programs that typically aim to change the behavior of a social system. For example, an intervention to address a public health problem is developed, and the intervention is promoted to people in a social system with the goal of adoption (based on Diffusion of Innovation Theory). 
The most successful adoption of a public health program results from understanding the target population and the factors influencing their rate of adoption.