The origins and development of the diffusion of innovations paradigm as an example of scientific growth

The origins and development of the diffusion of innovations paradigm as an example of scientific growth

Author

Thomas W Valente. Everett M Rogers

Year
1995
image

<Insert Cover Image Here & On The Page Summary>

The origins and development of the diffusion of innovations paradigm as an example of scientific growth

Thomas W Valente. Everett M Rogers. 1995. (View Paper → )

Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among members of a social system. The diffusion of innovations is a communication theory which has laid the groundwork for behaviour change models across the social sciences, representing a widely applicable perspective…This paper describes some of the history of rural sociological research on the diffusion of agricultural innovations with the goal of understanding how the research tradition emerged and to determine how it influenced the larger body of diffusion research conducted later by scholars in other disciplinary specialties. The authors describe how diffusion of innovations research followed and deviated from the Kuhnian concept of paradigm development.

The diffusion of innovation paradigm originated with Gabriel Tarde's "laws of imitation" in 1903, and early diffusion studies in Europe during the early 20th century.

Diffusion theory entered U.S. rural sociology through studies like Ryan and Gross’s hybrid corn research in the 1940s, focusing on how agricultural innovations spread.

In 1962, Everett Rogers synthesized earlier diffusion research in his landmark book Diffusion of Innovations, marking the formal crystallization of the paradigm.

The paradigm expanded into fields such as medical sociology, education, marketing, geography, and anthropology, with the number of diffusion-related publications doubling every decade between the 1940s and 1980s.

Diffusion Theory:

Diffusion theory outlines five stages of innovation adoption: knowledge, persuasion, decision, implementation, and confirmation.

A core component of diffusion theory is the S-shaped curve that illustrates the gradual adoption of innovations over time.

People are classified into five adopter categories based on their adoption speed: innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards.

The spread of innovations depends on five attributes: relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, and observability.

Interpersonal networks, with opinion leaders playing a key role, are crucial to accelerating or slowing the diffusion process.

The diffusion of innovation paradigm serves as an example of how scientific research traditions evolve into widely adopted paradigms, spreading across disciplines and benefiting from multidisciplinary contributions.