Adoption and Diffusion
"The emergence of the basic paradigm for early diffusion research [was] created by two rural sociologists at Iowa State University, Bryce Ryan and Neal C. Gross" and gained recognition when they "published the results of their hybrid corn study"(Valente and Rogers, 1995, paragraph 1 ) in 1943. Post World War II agriculture experienced a boom in "technological innovation" and "as a result…U.S. farms became business enterprises rather than family-subsistence units…concerned with productivity, efficiency, competitiveness, and agricultural innovations"(Valente and Rogers, 1995, paragraph 11 ). These concerns lead to many agricultural studies based on the diffusion paradigm developed by Ryan and Gross. In their studies, Ryan and Gross were able to show that diffusion was a "social process through which subjective evaluations of an innovation spread from earlier to later adopters rather than one of rational, economic decision making" (Valente and Rogers, 1995, paragraph 22 ). From this they developed the paradigm for diffusion research, consisting of four parts: "(1) the innovation-decision process for an individual farmer, including the sequential stages of awareness, trial, and adoption; (2) the roles of information sources/channels about the innovation; (3) the S-shaped rate of adoption, a curve that was tested as to whether it fit a normal distribution; and (4) the personal, economic, and social characteristics of various adopter categories (i.e., classification of individuals on the basis of their relative earliness in adopting an innovation)"(Valente and Rogers, 1995, paragraph 23) Gabriel Tarde, a French sociologist in the early 1900s, "identified the S-shaped curve of the rate of adoption of an inno...
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...adoption is inevitable and will result in change. However, the adopter based theory argues that the technological superiority of a product or system may not lead to its adoption because of the "human, interpersonal, and social factors" involved in adopting a new technology in a certain social context (Surry and Farquhar, 1997, p.8 ). The QWERTY and Dvorak keyboard are an example of how technological superiority is often not enough for a new product or service to be adopted(Surry and Farquhar, 1997, p. 9). As one can see, these theories connect the diffusion theory to instructional technology. The question remains, do we adopt technology for technology’s sake and assume a change for the better or do we adopt technology when it is relevant to the learner’s environment and take our chances? "Risk is a final factor…in educational innovation"(Wright et al., 1995, p. 3).
Farmers’ incomes were low, and in order to make a profit on what they produced, they begun to expand the regions in which they sold their products in. This was facilitated through the railroads, by which through a series of grants from the government as...
In this text, the author explores the role that technology currently plays in schools and in education in general, as well as future consequences that will occur depending on whether society continues to insist on a type of education that is relatively lacking in technology or decides to embrace the options available whole-heartedly. There are both gains...
This comparison between American Airlines (AA) and US Airways (AWE) starts from the year ending report in 2008 after AWE finally completed embedding America West into their operations in October, a process begun in 2005. Neither has taken part in any mergers or takeovers since then and, despite AWE briefly flirting with the idea of taking over United Airlines in 2008, merger and acquisition plans for both had been subordinate to recovering from the Global Financial Crisis (GFC).
Cultural diffusion is the method in which a characteristic or idea spreads from place to place. With diffusion there is always a place of origin, referred to as a hearth or node. Hearths appear when people are willing to try something new and have the necessary resources to do so. There are two types of diffusion: relocation and expansion. Relocation diffusion refers to the spread from one place to another through physical movement such as immigration. Expansion diffusion is the spread from one place to another in an additive process. There are three different categories of expansion diffusion: hierarchical, contagious, and stimulus. Hierarchical diffusion pertains to the spread of ideas through people of power to other people or place. Contagious diffusion is a fast spread from one place to another in a way that the flu is spread, from person to person. Lastly, stimulus diffusion is the spread of a certain concept but not the actual characteristic itself. Hierarchical diffusion is still among the most popular form of diffusion but is slowly being taken
The results of European colonialism shows that the aim of colonialism is to exploit the human and economic resources of an area to benefit the colonizing nation. As a result, the nation that is colonized is affected negatively. In reality, how Europe really affected Africa as a whole is much
Before the Europeans began the New Imperialism in Africa, very little was known about the inner parts of the continent. However, after some explorers delved deeper into the heart of Africa, the Europeans soon realized how economically important this area was, and how much they could profit from it. At the time, Britain had only small occupations of land in Africa, but after they realized that they could make money from the rich resources from the inner regions of Africa, they wanted to invade the African countries and take over. This led to the scramble and ultimately, the partition of Africa. During the Age of Imperialism, from 1870-1914, Britain was a major country, which proved to be true in the “carving up” and division of Africa. Britain was one of the strongest of the European countries, and had the power to take over much of the most valuable lands with the most rich and abundant supplies of raw materials and other resources. There were five main reasons for their imperialism. They were political and military interests, humanitarian and religious goals, ideological, exploratory, and lastly, but most importantly, economic interests.
Conley, Dalton. (2013). You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking like a Sociologist (3rd edition). Columbus, OH: W. W. Norton & Company.
Substances can only move across a cell membrane by active transport or passive transport. Active transport moves molecules from a low concentration to a high concentration area using the body’s energy. Passive transport moves molecules from a high concentration to a low concentration area without using any energy. Furthermore, the main process of passive transport is diffusion, which involves the movement of dissolved particles through a semi-permeable membrane from that of a high concentration to a low concentration. The tonicity of a cell refers to the concentration of the solution that will determine the direction and extent of diffusion. Diffusion comes in another form called facilitated diffusion/transport, which
The market today has become so important that society takes it as completely natural. From “The Economic Problem” Heilbroner describes three main solutions, with the market being one. Furthermore into the market, Polanyis book “The great Transformation” gives insight on how much society actually allows the market to dominate. To Polanyi a market society is seen as social relations embedded in the economy instead of the economy being embedded in social relations. Examining both of these books gives a great understanding on how life was without the market and how it came to be. Taking note of Rineharts work as well on how the workplace has drastically been changed by the market is key to analyzing the transformation as a whole. As a result of the transformation, not only has human labour been altered, but another author known as Weber states that certain peoples view on the world have also be affected. This essay will establish how “the great transformation” (Polanyi) from a traditional society to one based on a market economy has vastly impacted societal workplaces, and societal beliefs around faith of idealogical conditions.
Thomas Edison once said “nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to a point where it looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That 's not the place to become discouraged.” This quotation implies that even when things may seem difficult, never give up, only work harder to find another way and push through to succeed. This quotation relates to How Great Leaders Inspire Action by Simon Sinek 's Ted Talk. Many companies want to succeed in their business but must use different methods such as the golden circle. This model explains why some people are inspired by leaders, and organizations over others. In Sinecks speech, he also discusses The Law of Diffusion of Innovation which defines mass market success and how achieve it.
The overall purpose of the experiments in this lab was to introduce the function and structure of the plasma membrane, describe the workings of diffusion and osmosis, and to demonstrate how different factors such as particle size, temperature, and space of diffusion area affect the rate of diffusion. With the results from the experiments, it can be concluded that all of the factors listed do affect diffusion, and there may be many more than are unaccounted for.
1- Issues The main issue of this case is the lack of profits of the airline industry, an industry that should be more than profitable due to the large amount of customers, the necessity of using airlines’ services and the high prices charged by most of these airlines. What we are going to deal with is, why is this happening? And how is American airlines dealing with this problem?. To be able to discuss how American airlines wants to regain profitability, we must identify and analyse different issues such as, the company’s background, the airline industry as a whole, the demand for air travel, the marketing strategies, the distribution systems, pricing policies etc.
The diffusion of innovations theory is a behavioral change model developed in 1962 by Everett Rogers as he tried to explain and predict the acceptance of new ideas from various adopters (LaMorte, 2016). This assignment will focus on the health topic of child vaccination as well as address two types of adopters – the early majority and the laggards. The early majority group, under the diffusion of innovations model, consist of individuals who only adopt new ideas after witnessing positive outcomes. In contrast, laggards consist of conservative individuals who are often doubtful of change (and often times refuse it). These health messages will demonstrate two contradicting approaches as one will educate the public and the other will use regulations
Thomas P. Hughes once mentioned that “A technological system can be both a cause and effect; it can shape or be shaped by society” (p.112). When describing the influence of culture on today’s societal changes, the emerging trend of technological determinism fits the role. Technological determinism is the phrase that describes how technology influences the evolution of humans. One might describe technological determinism as “How who we are is determined by the tools we invent and use.” The reason why I choose this topic is because I personally believe that I am a part of the generation where the role of technology quickly became significant in our society and I was interested in learning more about how it actually shaped our future. The progression of technology has allowed people to shape the future of teaching and learning in education institutions. Sadly, the negatives effects of technological determinism would be the constant desire of being a part of the newest technological trends by following others. The following article that will be presented to assist as evidence of technological determinism involved in educational systems are by Kathrin Dodds, Donnell Callender and Cynthia Henry. The next article that proposes the studies of herd behavior in the adoption of technology is written by Heshan Sun.
Parsons, Talcott. (1938). The Role of Theory in Social Research. American Sociological Review. 3(1), 13-20.