D11.3: Economic aspects of mobility and identity

Title: CRITIQUE ON THE DIFFUSION OF INNOVATION THEORY

Although the DoI is discussed widely in the relevant research and practitioner’s literature, it also fuelled some controversy with regard to its implications and possible biases: 

1. Referring to Clark and Stauton, the DoI theory brings in a “pro-innovation bias”. The DoI theory assumes that at a certain point in time, the innovations will be adopted by all members of a particular social system. As Hans Beyers remarks, this bias can be seen as the result of “[…] a historical focus of researchers towards adoption”. As a result, aspects as the ignorance and the refusal of innovations have been under exposed

2. Furthermore, there seems to be an “individual – blame bias”. This relates to the fact that people, who refuse to adopt innovations, are being reproached with it. However, one has to accept that innovations will never be perceived as useful by all people.

3. The theory of Rogers underestimates the importance of the context of a certain country or region. One has to keep in mind that characteristics of opinion leaders differ between different regions. Secondly the criteria to diffuse innovation and the ways of communicating and controlling communications differ also between regions.