A Process Study of the Diffusion of Career Development
Abstract
The process of communicating new ideas - diffusion - transpires over time
along communication channels in a social system. In education, much stands to be
gained from successful innovation. The process is a perilous course with high
rates of casualty. As viable innovations fail, our schools bear the
consequences. This dissertation includes a process study of the diffusion of an
innovation at a state department of education and in two school districts. The
study was framed by Rogers' model of innovation in organizations (1995) to
determine if the diffusion of a comprehensive career development program
verified theory.
Through instrumental case studies, the process of diffusing career
development was traced. The investigative procedure included the examination of
temporal patterns that, when sequenced, indicated operational links in a multi-
dimensional process of innovation.
Findings indicated five stages as delineated by Rogers (1995) but more
broadly defined. Additionally, the stages emerged in interactive looping
patterns unlike Rogers' linear model. Different outcomes were evidenced in each
case. The state department of education was the only agency that verified the
problem-based foundation of Rogers' initiation stages. The model's
implementation components were found to be too linear, precluding the recycling
patterns that occurred during the on-going mutual adaptations between the
innovation and the organizations.
Rogers' model of the innovation process in organizations attempts,
unsuccessfully, to reach beyond the complex communication networking that his
descriptions of diffusion categorize. To attempt to spread the strength of the
theoretical implications of actual diffusion is to misuse the assets and
unjustly ascribe an inadequacy to them. Diffusion of innovation in individuals
and in organizations involves different complexities that are not accounted for
in Rogers' organization model. Rogers' model for individuals is deployable to
the organization innovation process as explanation of individuals acting within
a greater body, yet explaining the parts of a whole does not necessarily explain
the whole. Rogers' model lacks content explanation and complexity explanation of
the process of organizational innovation.
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- Doctoral Dissertations [14971]