An analysis of existing publications to explore the use of the diffusion of innovations theory and innovation attributes

Abstract

‘Diffusion of Innovations’ is a theory that explicates the process of introducing new ideas (i.e. technological innovation) into a system via varied channels of communication. The purpose of this paper is to undertake a systematic review of the available literature to examine the current advances in the Diffusion Of Innovations (DOI) theory. The focus remains more inclined towards the diffusion attributes. ISI Web of Knowledge <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">®</sup> and Google Scholar were the two rigorously used search engines for our study. These engines fectched a total of 2073 published records that cited Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation theory. Some of these publications were found to be available for download. Upon conducting a further search, 1145 published records were found to have used the 28 innovation attributes that were identified in a previous article on this subject. Statistical filtering then showed complexity to be the highly used attribute with 834 records having cited this attribute. Further review showed that all the five attributes adopted from Rogers' work of study, represented the most frequently employed attributes for examining the rate of innovation adoption.