Adopter Categories

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Adopter Categories

• Intro to Info Decision Science in
  Agro-Ecosystems
• Unit 2 Diffusion of Ag Innovations

2
Objectives

• Given a diffusion situation be able to categorize
  adopters of innovations using the classifications
  described by Rogers

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How many of you buy DVDs?

• How many of you have a VCR?
• Do you think DVD will replace VHS?
• At what point would you buy a DVD player?

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Adopter Categories

• Innovators (venturesome)
• Early Adopters (respect)
• Early Majority (deliberate)
• Late Majority (skeptical)
• Laggards (traditional)

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Categories Chart
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Innovators - Venturesome

• Interest in new ideas leads them out of local
  circle of peer networks
• Clique of innovators regardless of geographical
  distance
• Control of substantial financial resources
• Ability to understand and apply technical
  knowledge
• Must cope with high degrees of uncertainty

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Early Adopters - Respect

• More integrated part of local social system
• Greatest degree of opinion leadership
• The person to check with
• Sought by change agents
• Respected by their peers
• Makes judicious innovation-decisions

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Early Majority - Deliberate

• Interact frequently with peers
• Seldom hold leadership opinion positions
• Will deliberate for some time
• Innovation-decision period is longer
• Most numerous - one-third of the members of the
  system

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Late Majority - Skeptical

• Adopt just after the average member of a system
• Adoption because of economic necessity
• Also increasing pressures from peers
• Skeptical and cautious in their approach
• Peer pressure necessary
• Most of the uncertainty must be removed

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Laggards - Traditional

• Last in a system to adopt
• Point of reference is the past
• Many are near isolates in the social network of
  their system
• Interact primarily with others who have
  traditional values
• Suspicious of innovations and change agents

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Socioeconomic Status

• Early adopters
• arent different in age from later adopters
• have more years of formal education
• are more likely to be literate
• have higher social status
• have a greater degree of social mobility
• have larger units (e.g. farms, schools)

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Personality Values

• Early adopters
• have greater empathy
• may be less dogmatic
• have a greater ability to deal with abstractions
• have greater rationality
• have greater intelligence

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Personality Values continued

• Earlier adopters
• more favorable attitude toward change
• are better able to cope with uncertainty
• more favorable attitude toward science
• are less fatalistic
• have higher aspirations

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Communication Behavior

• Earlier adopters
• more social participation
• more interconnected through interpersonal
  networks
• more cosmopolite
• more change agent contact
• greater exposure to mass media

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Communication Behavior

• Earlier adopters
• greater exposure to interpersonal communications
  channels
• seek information about innovations more actively
• have greater knowledge of innovations
• higher degree of opinion leadership

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Application

• Think about some of the innovations that you have
  adopted
• Which category would you classify yourself in?

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Evaluation

• Case Study 2
• Mid Term Exam