Their research was a key in putting DOI theory on the academic map and made researchers realize that it is a communication process. .
Everett M. Rogers, professor at the University of New Mexico, has spent 30 years studying the phenomenon "Diffusion of Innovation". In his book Diffusion of Innovations, Rogers writes that an innovation "presents an individual or organization with a new alternative, with new means of solving problems. But the probabilities of the new alternative being superior to previous practice are not exactly known by the individual problem solvers" (Everett Rogers 1995). .
The main idea of this theory is that if you want other people to adopt or diffuse your ideas and innovation you need to do two things. First, you need to set in motion a powerful chain reaction to persuade people to use your idea. Second, you need to make sure your idea has the best characteristics that make it likely to be adopted. So, diffusion of innovation helps understand how new ideas or behaviors are introduced and become accepted by a group of people. People in the same community adopt new behaviors at different rates and respond to different methods of intervention. The stimulus for innovation may originate from the internal and/or external environment (Armenakis & Bedeian, 1999). .
Drawing from Lawrence's (1989) four-ring model on organization change, the two inner rings encircle different internal stimuli that may be sources for innovations. The first inner ring encapsulated valueadding behavior and the second ring encompassed the 7-S framework - strategy, structure, systems, superordinate goals, staffing, skills, and style. External stimuli for innovation may come from the two outer rings of Lawrence's (1989) model which encompassed customers, suppliers, shareholders, and community in the third ring, and social change, technological change, economic change, and political change in the fourth ring.