Riassunto esame Teorie e Culture dell'innovazione, Prof. Volontè Paolo Gaetano, libro consigliato Diffusion of Innovations, Everett M. Rogers

- that takes place when the individual puts an innovation into use considering re-

IMPLEMENTATION

invention as well.

- or when an individual seeks reinforcement of an innovation decision. That has already

CONFIRMATION

been made, nut he or she may reverse this previous decision if exposed to con icting messages about

the innovation.

Speci cally at knowledge stage the individual want to know what the innovation is and why it works, so the

cause-effect relationships that are involved. Mass media can be really effective at this stage because their

message is general in nature. On the contrary in persuasion and decision stage individual seeks more

speci c informations or innovation-evaluation information, in order to reduce uncertainty about an

innovation’s expected consequences (advantages, disadvantages speci c for a particular situation). In this

case interpersonal communication could be crucial to receive subjective evaluation.

Decision stage lead to an adoption or a rejection of the innovation, but such decisions can be reversed at

later point (con rmation stage), when discontinuance happen for example: a decision to reject an innovation

after it has previously been adopted. This could happen because individual becomes dissatis ed with an

innovation or because the innovation has been replaced with an improvement of the same idea.

We could say that the innovation-decision process involves time in the sense that the ve steps usually

occur in a tie- ordered sequence. Exceptions may occur for some individuals under some conditions, such as

when the decision stage precedes the persuasion one (an individual ordered to adopt by some authority).

The innovation-decision period is the length of time required to pass through the innovation-decision

process. Individuals vary this innovation-decision period with some people requiring years to adopt an

innovation, while other moving rapidly.

(b). INNOVATIVENESS

Considering a system we talk about innovativeness when an individual is relatively earlier in adopting

new ideas than the other members of the same system.

Adopter categories is the classi cation of members of a social system on the basis of innovativeness. This

classi cation of system’s members into adopter categories are based upon the relative time at which an

innovation is adopted. We have:

- : active information seekers about new ideas. High degree of mass media exposure, large

INNOVATORS

interpersonal networks, reaching outside their local system. They are able to cope with high level of

uncertainty about an innovation than other adopter categories. They do not depend on subjective

evaluations of the innovation because they are the rst to adopt it.

- EARLY ADOPTERS

- EARLY MAJORITY

- or less innovative member of a social system. Commonly this category has low

LATE MAJORITY

socioeconomic status, makes little use of mass media channel and learns about most new ideas from

peers via interpersonal communication channels.

(c). RATE OF ADOPTION

The rate of adoption is the relative speed with which an innovation is adopted by members of a social

system, which is resulting in a S-shaped curved when a new idea is plotted on a cumulative frequency basis

over time. It goes like:

- innovators adopt the innovation in each time period (a few individuals).

- more and more individuals adopt the idea so the diffusion curve begins to climb.

fi fi fi fi fi fi fl fi fi fi

- a fewer and fewer individuals remain who have not yet adopted the innovation so the trajectory begin

to level off.

- the S-shape curve reaches the in nite and the diffusion process is nished.

Of course there are variation to this S-shape curve depending the rapidity of diffusion of a new idea. The

problem is understanding why some innovation have a rapid rate of adoption and others a slower one. This is

proven depending on the perceived attributes of innovations (relative advantage, compatibility etc.).

VIII. SOCIAL SYSTEM

A social system is a set of interrelated units that are engaged in joint problem solving to accomplish a common

goal that binds the system together. Those units are the members of the social system who may be individuals,

informal groups, organizations or subsystems.

The key is that diffusion happens inside a social system and the social structure of thus system affects the innovation’s

diffusion in several ways.

(a). SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND DIFFUSION

Social structure (formal) is the patterned arrangements of the units in a system that gives regularity and

stability to human behavior in a system allowing to predict behavior with accuracy, decreasing uncertainty.

(es. hierarchy)

Communication structure (informal) exist in the interpersonal network linking system’s members, tracing

who interacts with whom and under what circumstances. A lack of this communication structure would bring

to a situation in which each individual talked with equal probability to each other, for example when complete

strangers rst come together. However regular patterns soon begin to occur in the communication network

of the system, leading to homophilous sets of individuals to be grouped together in cliques.

A system structure can affect the diffusion and adoption of innovations over the effect of such variables

such as the individual characteristics of the members. Individual innovativeness is affected, on the other hand,

by individual characteristics and by the nature of the social system in which the individual Is member.

(b). SYSTEM NORMS AND DIFFUSIONS

Norms are the established behavior patterns for the members of a social system. Norms de ne a range

of tolerable behavior and serve as a guide or standard for the behavior of members in a social system,. The

norms of a system tell individuals what behavior they are accepted to perform. A system’s norm can be a

barrier to change.

(c). OPINION LEADERS AND CHANGE AGENTS

- : perceived as a deviant from the costal system, has a low credibility by

MOST INNOVATIVE MEMBER OF A SYSTEM

the average members of the system. The individual has a limited role in innovation diffusion.

- or opinion leadership is the degree to which an individual is able to in uence other

OPINION LEADERS

individuals’ attitudes or behavior informally in a desired way with relative frequency but it is not linked with

the individual position or status in the system. Usually the behavior of opinion leaders re ects system’s

norm: when the social system is oriented to change opinion leaders are more innovative, when system’s

norms are opposed to change the opinion leaders are conformate to these system norms. Compared with

their followers opinion leaders are more exposed to external communication, have a higher

socioeconomic status and are more innovative.

- is an individual who in uences innovation-decisions in a direction desiderabile by a change

CHANGE AGENT

agency, seeking to obtain adoption of new ideas but also attempt to slow down diffusion and prevent the

adoption of undesirable innovation. Giving the fact that change agents are usually professionally trained

and with an high social status, they are also heterophilous form their typical clients.

fi fi fl fi fl fl fi

- is a less fully professional change agent who contacts clients to in uence their innovation decisions,

AIDE

but being homophilous with the average client, bridging the heterophily gap between professional

change agents and the client audience.

(d). TYPES OF INNOVATION-DECISIONS

- are choices to adopt or reject an innovation made by an individual

OPTIONAL INNOVATION DECISIONS

independent of the decisions of the other members of the system. Even in this case the individual’s

decision may be in uenced by the norms of the system and by communication networks.

- - are choices to adopt or reject an innovation made by consensus among the

COLLECTIVE INNOVATION DECISIONS

members of a system.

- - are choices to adopt or reject an innovation that are made by a relatively

AUTHORITY INNOVATION DECISIONS

few individuals in a system who possess power, status or technical expertise. An individual member of the

system has little or no in uence in the authority innovation-decisions.

- - are choices to adopt or reject that can be made only after a prior

CONTINGENT INNOVATION DECISIONS

innovation-decision so a sequential combination of two or more of the three types of decisions.

Generally collective and authority decisions are more common than optional decisions in most organizations

and the fastest rate of adoption of an innovative decision comes from an authority decision.

IX. CONSEQUENCES OF INNOVATION

Consequences are the changes that occur to an individual or to a social system as a result of the adoption or rejection

of an innovation. We can have three classi cation of consequences:

- Desiderabile vs undesirable consequences.

- Direct versus indirect consequences.

- Anticipated versus unanticipated.

Change agents usually introduce innovations into a client system that they expect will have consequences that will be

desirable, direct, and anticipated. But often such innovations result in at least some unanticipated

consequences that are indirect and undesirable for the system's members.

Change agents can often anticipate and predict an innovation's form, the directly observable physical

appearance of the innovation, and perhaps its function, the contribution of the idea to the way of life of the

system's members. But seldom are change agents able to predict an innovation's meaning, the subjective

perceptions of the innovation by the clients.

Libro 03

Judy Wajcman

Domestic Technologies

The introduction of technologies into home has especially affected women’s lives, in fact the changes occurred in

home due to technology are not less profound then the changes occurred in industry during the industrial revolution.

We can certainly say that industrial revolution has occurred in household too.

Feminism has always seen domestic work done by women as the key of women oppression and technology brought

in home in some way seems to be a way to avoid this. In fact in an optimistic way of seeing things technology may

provide the solution to gender inequality in the home.

In 1970 housework nally become the object of academic study, this was because it seemed to be a kind of

connection between industrial capitalism and the shaping of everyday life within household.

fl fi fl fi fl

We have different publication since 1970 on housework:

- The sociology of housework by Ann Oakley, 1974

- Time Spent in Housework by Joann Vanek, 1974, article

In this last article has been compared studies from 1920 to 1960, saying that there were no changes in the amount of

time spent doing housework, even with technologies.

I. Industrialization of the Home and Creation of the Housewife

Technological changes and market growth have progressively absorbed much of the household’s role in production.

Talcott Parsons argues that industrialization removed many function from the family system, until only consumption

remains.

The gure of women/mother in household has a more emotional and physiological role than the pragmatic role of

man in the real work world. Household has passed from a unit of production to a unit of consumption.

Modern technology apparently has made less dif cult or eliminated household work from women’s life. Like Ruth

Schwarz Cowan argued in her "American study of the development of household technology between 1860 and

1960”, the changes of technology in the house hold were not those that the traditional model predicts, even if

it’s true that industrialization has transformed household.

In Cowan opinion the industrial revolution of the home as failed in facilitate of eliminate household tasks.

Mechanization has created, in fact, a whole range of new tasks which were as time consuming as the jobs they had

replaced:

- loss of servants meant middle class housewives to do housework by themselves.

- expectations on housewife role raised, which generated more homework for women.

- mechanization has taken place in privatized, single-family household so it only had limited effect on housework.