Importance And Diffusion Of Innovation Theory

Diffusion of Innovation Theory Name Institution Diffusion of Innovation Theory History and Overview of Diffusion of Innovation Theory Diffusion of innovation is a theory that explores how, why, and what causes new ideas and technology to spread. According to Hanneman et al. (1969), the idea of diffusion originated from a French sociologist named Gabriel Tarde who explored the idea in the late 19th century. The concept was also studied by Friedrich Ratzel and Leo Frobenius in anthropology and geography respectively. In the United States, diffusion of innovations emerged in the 1920s and 1930s in the subfield of rural sociology. At this time, agriculture technology was swiftly progressing and researchers started studying how farmers were adapting to the hybrid seeds, new techniques of farming, and equipment. The research by Ryan and Gross conducted in Iowa focusing on how hybrid corn seeds faired with farmers incorporated the concept of diffusion (Hanneman et al., 1969). Since then, Diffusion of Innovations was applied in different contexts including communications, health promotion, medical sociology, conservation biology, and organizational studies among others. In 1962, Everett Rogers popularized the theory in his book Diffusion of Innovations (Hanneman et al., 1969). Rogers combined research from more than 508 diffusion studies and from this he developed ideas of adoption of innovation in individuals, as well as organizations. The basic principle of Diffusion of Innovation theory is that new ideas spreads over a specific population over time. People adapt to a new idea, behavior, or product gradually because some individuals are more suitable to adopt innovation than others (Kapoor, Dwivedi & Williams, 2014). The individuals who embrace a technology early possess different characteristics that those who embrace it later. The theory explores five adopter categories. The first category is the innovators and they are the people who desire to try an innovation and are interested in new ideas. The second category comprises of early adopters and they are mainly opinion leaders who generally recognize the need to embrace change. The third category represents the early majority who need to see that the innovation is working to embrace it. The fourth is late majority who are skeptical about change and will only adopt to an innovation if adopted by the majority. Finally, the laggards are the conservative people and would be forced to adopt to innovation through fear appeals, showing them statistics, and pressure from those who have already adapted (Kapoor, Dwivedi & Williams, 2014). Importance of Theory in Evidence Based Practice This theory is suitable for the evidence-based practice (EBP) because techniques of delivering care in healthcare systems is changing. The Diffusion of Innovation offers essential information on how healthcare professionals can adopt to the changes in healthcare systems. Ideally, adopting to changes in healthcare can be difficult. However, with the knowledge from the Diffusion of Innovation, a platform of how ideas spread and are adopted is provided to enable healthcare professionals to slowly adopt to change. One specific example of how the principles of Diffusion of Innovation theory ap...