Innovation diffusion

According to Rogers (1962), the diffusion of innovations starts with two small groups of people, the innovators, who take the bigger risks being the first ones to adopt the technology and then the early adopters who have a high degree of opinion leadership among the rest of the community, sharing their satisfaction with the technology. Both innovators and early adopters have a high education level. The early majority have contacts with the early adopters and a rather high social status. They adopt the innovations significantly after the early adopters. At first very sceptical, the late majority adopt the technology after the average participant. They are found to have little opinion leadership. Finally the laggards are reluctant to changes and are very traditional. With a low socio-economic status, they are the last ones to adopt an innovation. Given this dynamic perspective, culture has an impact on technology adoption as it shapes the groups of adopters. In this section we will take both a static view (the actual picture of uses and adoption) and, wherever possible, a dynamic one (by pointing out the evolution). We will focus mainly on technologies that are already widely spread or are expected to be in few years, such as social media, Internet or smartphones because they are the most adopted ones and have a stronger impact during crisis.

Note: See source document for full reference.

Cultural Factors: Socio-economic status, Age-related roles

Hazards: Natural hazards, Man-made non-intentional hazards or emergency situations, Man-made intentional hazards

Disaster Phases: Recovery, Response, Preparedness, Prevention, All disaster phases

Types of Actors Concerned: Active citizens, Entrepreneurs

Recommendations:

• The use of new technologies (e.g. Bluetooth) can improve communication strategies in disaster management situations