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As a professional, how do you rate yourself as an adopter of change?

Rogers, Everett M. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations, Fifth Edition. New York, NY: Free Press /Amazon

Innovator: Venturesome

Observers have noted that venturesomeness is almost an obsession with innovators. They are very eager to try new ideas. This interest leads them out of a local circle of peer networks and into more cosmopolite social relationships. Communication patterns and friendships among a clique of innovators are common, even though the geographical distance between the innovators may be considerable. Being an innovator has several prerequisites. These include control of substantial financial resources to absorb the possible loss owing to an unprofitable innovation and the ability to understand and apply complex technical knowledge. The innovator must be able to cope with the high degree of uncertainty about an innovation at the time that the innovator adopts.

The salient value of the innovator is venturesomeness. He or she desires the hazardous, the rash, the daring and the risky. The innovator must also be willing to accept an occasional setback when one of the new ideas he or she adopts proves unsuccessful, as inevitably happens. While an innovator may not be respected by the other members of a social system, the innovator plays an important role in the diffusion process: that of launching the new idea in the social system by importing the innovation from outside of the system’s boundaries. Thus, the innovator plays a gate keeping roles in the flow of new ideas into a social system.

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Early Adopters: Respectable

Early adopters are a more integrated part of the local social system then are innovators. Whereas innovators are cosmopolites, early adopters are localities. This adopter category, more than any other, has the greatest degree of opinion leadership in most social systems. Potential adopters look to early adopter for advice and information about the innovation. The early adopter is considered by many as “the individual to check with” before using a new idea. This adopter category is generally sought by change agents to be a local missionary for speeding the diffusion process. Because early adopters aren’t too far ahead of the average individual in innovativeness, they serve as a role model for many other members of a social system. The early adopter is respected by his or her peers, and is the embodiment of successful and discrete use of new ideas. And the early adopter knows that to continue to earn this esteem of colleagues and to maintain a central position in the communication structure of the system, he or she must make judicious innovations decisions. So the role of the early adopter is to decrease uncertainty about a new idea by adopting it, and then conveying a subjective evaluation of the innovation to near-peers by means of interpersonal networks.

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Early Majority: Deliberate

The early majority adopt new ideas just before the average member of a social system. The early majorities interact frequently with their peers, but seldom hold leadership positions. The early majority’s unique position between the very early and the relatively late to adopt makes them an important link in the diffusion process. They provide interconnectedness in the system’s networks.

The early majority may deliberate for some time before completely adopting g new idea. Their innovation-decision period is relatively longer than that of the innovator and the early adopter. “Be not the first by which the new is tried, /Nor the last to lay the old aside” (quoted from Alexander Pope at the beginning of this chapter), might be the early majority’s motto. They follow with deliberate willingness in adopting innovations, but seldom lead.

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Late Majority: Skeptical

The late majority adopt new ideas just after the average member of a social system. Adoption may be both an economic necessity and the answer to increasing network pressures. Innovations are approached with a skeptical and cautious air, and the late majority do not adopt until most others in their social system have done so. The weight of system norms must definitely favor the innovation before the late majority are convinced. They can be persuaded of the utility of new ideas, but the pressure of peers is necessary to motivate adoption. Their relatively scarce resources mean that almost all of the uncertainty about a new idea must be removed before the late majority feel that it is safe to adopt.

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Laggards: Traditional

Laggards are the last in a social system to adopt an innovation. They possess almost no opinion leadership. They are the most localite in their outlook of all adopter categories; many are near isolates in social networks. The point of reference for the laggard is the past. Decisions are often made in terms of what has been done in previous generations and these individuals interact primarily with others who also have relatively traditional values. When laggards finally adopt an innovation, it may already have been superseded by another more recent idea that is already being used by the innovators. Laggards tend to be frankly suspicious of innovations and change agents. Their traditional orientation slows the innovation-decision process to a crawl, with adoption lagging far behind awareness-knowledge of a new idea. While most individuals in a social system are looking to the road of change ahead, the laggard’s attention is fixed on the rear-view mirror. This resistance to innovations on the part of laggards may be entirely rational from the laggard’s viewpoint, as their resources are limited and so they must be relatively certain that a new idea will not fail before they can afford to adopt. The laggard’s precarious economic position forces these individuals to be extremely cautious in adopting innovations.

Many observers have noted that “laggard” is a bad name, and it is undoubtedly true that this title of the adopter category carries an invidious distinction (in much the same way that “lower class” is a negative nomenclature). Laggard is a bad name because most nonlaggards have a strong pro-innovation bias. Diffusion scholars who use adopter categories in their research do not mean any particular disrespect by the term “laggard.” Indeed if they used any other term instead of laggards, it would soon have a similar negative connotation. Bit it is a mistake to imply that laggards are somehow at fault for being relatively late to adopt; this is an illustration of individual-blame where system-blame may more accurately describe much of the reality of the laggards’ situation.

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