Association of Design Management to Innovation
Factors affecting Diffusion
Parina Vaghani
The Savannah College of Art and Design
Author note
This paper was written for DGMT 702 FOR Prof. C. Miller in Fall 2022
Association of Design Management to Innovation
The book referred to in this paper is the fifth edition of the book “Diffusion of Innovation” by the author Prof. Everett Rogers. He was a researcher, sociologist, professor, and communication theorist. The reading circles around Diffusion of Innovation and how he has layered calculative factors affecting diffusion. The understanding of the consequences of innovation is inferred from different case studies. The other two articles by B. Metcalfe and T. Walton are based on the business and management aspects of innovation. Further, in this paper, I will be associating parallels between book reading and articles. i.e. Design management and Diffusion of innovation, to understand the process and factors affecting both.
What is Innovation?
Problems give birth to innovation. Innovation is an idea, a practice, or an object that is new to an individual or group of people. The difference between invention and innovation can be understood by the example of Electricity being an Invention and the Electric car being an innovation. The adaptability of an idea is also based on the relativity of someone having the knowledge of innovation but not yet adopting it or rejecting it. The newness of an innovation may be expressed in terms of knowledge, persuasion, and a decision to adopt.
The innovation can be understood better with Lucy King’s example of an idea that not only served elephants but also the women of the society. She has portrayed a dramatic yet difficult conflict of space crunch between elephants and humans, where elephants frequently destroyed the living spaces of humans in search of food and water. Introducing beehives as a buffer between humans and elephants was an innovative approach. She understood the social system, its communication methods, and the prevailing problem. Along with installing African beehives she also encouraged the planting of several particular vegetation or plants which were helpful in pollination but were not liked by the elephants such as chilly, ginger, sunflower, sisal(jute), etc. The bold women of the villages were encouraged to earn extra income from yielding honey, making baskets, honey lip balms, and extracting oils. bees served as a natural and more technologically enhanced solution than the previously employed electric fences (King, 2020). Innovation is a process that helps an individual or a whole community to make life better and easy.
Innovation of the hot water system in Peru had a very theoretical approach as per Everett Rogers where the change agent (Nelida), a Heterophile (an outsider) was falling back on ideas to make villagers adapt to the new hygienic method of living. As one should first be part of the system and then ask for a change in someone’s lifestyle. Communication channels become necessary when the innovation is also uncertain so, an individual seeks knowledge to either adapt or reject the idea of innovation. Here, the communication thread was lacking because of less participation from the village. Adaptability is usually different for a vivid group of people as time passes. Rogers suggests, that the people of the Peru village were unsure about the germ theory, so they were not ready to accept that the water was unfit for
drinking. The Social System in the village of Peru was homophile, so people communicated within communities and lacked scientific knowledge, they then required a Heterophile who would understand their current living situation and give a personal or empathetic innovative response to individual housewives (Rogers, 2003). The cultural aspect of society overpowered scientific innovation.
What is Diffusion?
Diffusion is the process in which the innovation of an idea or product gains momentum and diffuses through various mediums of social structure and communication channels. Diffusion is a special type of communication where the information of an idea or innovation is shared with another individual which creates mutual understanding. The newness of a concept in communication generates certain characteristics. According to the author, Prof. Rogers of the book Diffusion of Innovation, the newness in innovation means a certain level of uncertainty is involved. Uncertainty of the future is also involved in discovery, creativity, and imagination. These three terms are very closely related to innovation.
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited Imagination encircles the world.” (Einstein, 1931)
Diffusion of Innovation ideally brings change to a social system and this unorganized system leads to certain consequences. Diffusion can be both a planned and a spontaneous spread of new ideas. The adoption rate of diffusion is based on various factors such as communication channels, social cultures, adaptability, time, complexity, etc.
To understand these factors affecting adoption see diagram 1
Diagram 1
The diffusion of hybrid corn in Iowa had spread in two Iowa communities because of strong interpersonal social networks. The first introduction of hybrid corn was 9 years before the actual diffusion of this innovation began, prof. Rogers noted that it took a long time for this hybrid to be accepted in society but once the diffusion began it was unstoppable and even untraceable. The hybrid corn had increased the harvest by 20% per acre and the major factor involved in this diffusion was interpersonal communication channels such as fellow farmers and neighbors, who encouraged them to follow the sawing of hybrid corn. The consequence of this innovation was that as the community started using hybrid corn, they abandoned their original method of saving heritage corn seeds and farmers eventually became dependent on buying hybrid corn seeds from agribusiness companies. Hybrid corn brought business to agro companies and gave farmers more produce
To draw parallels between Design management and diffusion of innovation, Design management as per Walton (2000), is a facet of big organizational management that does research within the company and also on the current trends for any idea or product. And diffusion of Innovation is a special type of communication where the information of an idea or innovation is shared with another individual creating mutual understanding. Lastly when it comes to adapting innovation, “Design managers” will act as change agents to increase diffusion.
References
Einstein, A. (1931). Cosmic religion: With other opinions and aphorisms (First Edition). [Book]
Metcalfe, B. (1999) Invention is a flower, innovation is a weed. 100 Young Innovators
Rogers, E. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations (5th ed.)
TED. (2020, February 28). Lucy King: How bees can keep the peace between elephants and humans [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on0B0iCovOo
Walton, T. (2000), Design Management as a Business and Academic Discipline. Academic Review, 1: 5-7. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1948-7177.2000.tb00001.x