Earlier adopters have more social participation than later adopters. Earlier adopters are more highly interconnected through interpersonal network in their social system than later adopters. Connectedness is the degree to which an individual is links to others. Earlier adopters are more cosmopolite than adopters. Innovator's interpersonal networks are more likely to be outside, rather than within, their system.
They travel widely and are involved in matters beyond the boundaries of their local system. Earlier adopters have more change agent contact than later adopters. Earlier adopters have greater exposure to mass media communication channels than later adopters. Earlier adopters seek information about innovations more actively than later adopters. Earlier adopters have greater knowledge of innovations than late adopters. Although innovativeness and option leadership is positively related, the degree to which these two variables are related depends in part in the norms of the social system. in a system with norms favorable to change, opinion leaders are more likely to be innovators.
A standard classification scheme for describing to perceived arrtibutes of innovations in universal terms in needed. We would then not have to study each innovation as a special case to predict its rate of adoption. We could say, for example, that innovation A is more like innovation B (in the eyes of the adopters) than it is like innovation C. Such a general classification system is an eventual objective of diffusion research on innovation attributes. While this goal has not been reached, there is an approach that has been widely uses for the past thirty years or so. Five different attributes of innovations are described. Each is somewhat empirically interrelated with the other four, but they are conceptually distinct. Selection of these five characteristics is based on past writing and research, as well as on a desire for maximum generality and succinctness. The five attributes of innovations are (1) Relative advantages (2) Compatibility (3) Complexity (4) Trailability and (5) Observability.
One possible problem with measuring the five attributes of innovations is that they may not in all cases be the five most important perceived characteristics for an particular set of respondents. The Solution, of course, it to elicit the main attributes of innovations from the respondents as a prior step to measuring these attributes as predictors of the rate adoption.
