Index of Paper Presentations for the Parallel Sessions - Academy of ...

Rogers (1995) then gives a five step model of how the innovation is adopted by the community. Hesuggests that the society and the people in the society will adopt an innovation in a five stage decisionmaking process that includes;1) Knowledge – person becomes aware of an innovation and has some idea of how it functions2) Persuasion – person forms a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward the innovation3) Decision – person engages in activities that lead to a choice to adopt or reject the innovation4) Implementation – person puts an innovation into use5) Confirmation – person evaluates the results of an innovation-decision already madeEach of these stages is important to the understanding of the innovation and the adoption of an innovationin the social context. The role of these stages would bring out the marketing challenges and will highlightthe differences in the marketing environment in an emerging market vis-à-vis a mature market, wheremost of these theories had been postulated.Diffusion scholars (Rogers, 1995; Moore, 2001) have suggested that the diffusion of innovation wouldfollow a bell shaped distribution. They have also suggested that the bell shaped distribution can be dividedinto five categories of system member innovativeness, where innovativeness is defined as the degree towhich an individual is relatively earlier in adopting new ideas than other members of a system. Thesegroups are (1) innovators, (2) early adopters,(3) early majority, (4) late majority, and (5) laggards.Innovators are venturesome types that enjoy being on the cutting edge. The innovation‘s possible benefitsmake it exciting; the innovators imagine the possibilities and are eager to give it a try. The implementationand confirmation stages of the innovators innovation-decisions are of particular value to the subsequentdecisions of potential adopters.Early adopters use the data provided by the innovators implementation and confirmation of the innovationto make their own adoption decisions. If the opinion leaders observe that the innovation has been effectivefor the innovators, then they will be encouraged to adopt. This group earns respect for its judicious, wellinformeddecision-making, and hence this group is where most opinion leaders in a social system reside.Much of the social system does not have the inclination or capability to remain abreast of the most recentinformation about innovations, so they instead trust the decisions made by opinion leaders. Additionally,much of the social system merely wants to stay in step with the rest. Since opinion leader adoption is agood indicator that an innovation is going to be adopted by many others, these conformity-lovingmembers are encouraged to adopt. So a large subsection of the social system follows suit with the trustedopinion leaders.This is the fabled tipping point, where the rate of adoption rapidly increases. For those who are cautious orhave particular qualms with the innovation, adoption becomes a necessity as the implementation of theinnovation-decisions of earlier adopters result in social and/or economic benefit. Those who have notadopted lose status or economic viability, and this contextual pressure motivates adoption.The last adopters, laggards, can either be very traditional or be isolates in their social system. If they aretraditional, they are suspicious of innovations and often interact with others who also have traditionalvalues. If they are isolates, their lack of social interaction decreases their awareness of an innovation‘sdemonstrated benefits. It takes much longer than average for laggards to adopt innovations.MethodologyThe method adopted in the paper is a case study based on observation and detailed unstructuredinterviews. The exploratory nature of the study entails that a single case study would suffice to give anoverall understanding of the way grassroot innovations diffuse and would guide the way forward for