Change Agents and Opinion Leaders Who are they?

Change Agent  Is an individual who influences client’s innovation-decisions in a direction deemed desirable by a change agency  Change agents use opinion leaders in a social system as their lieutenants in diffusion activities

Characteristics of Change Agents  Are usually professionals with a university degree in a technical field  They are heterophilous from their typical clients

Roles of Change Agents  Develop a need for change  Establish an information exchange relationship  Diagnose a problem  Create a intent to change  Translate an intent into action  Stabilize adoption and prevent discontinuance

Change Agents Connect  Change agents tend to reach the first few adopter categories Innovators20 Early Adopters15 Early Majority12 Late Majority5 Laggards3

Problems with Change Agents  Fail to penetrate to lower adopter categories because  Elite clients are homophilous with change agents  Lower status clients are socio- economically different from change agents –heterophily gap impedes communication

Opinion Leadership  Is the degree to which an individual is able to influence other individuals’ attitudes or overt behavior in a desired way with a relatively high frequency

Opinion leadership and Media use  Opinion leadership is not a trait  High knowledge of particular subjects and media experts  These people absorb certain media messages and inform their friends, families, and peers  Opinion leaders are not politicians and clergy and the like (although they can be)  Opinion leaders are not politicians and clergy and the like (although they can be)

Opinion Leaders  Magnify the change agents’ efforts  Give sanction and credibility to new ideas  Have followers  In some cases if opinion leaders adopt an innovation, it is impossible to stop its diffusion

Innovators and change agents  Innovators are first to adopt a new idea  They are often perceived as deviant in norms  Behavior does not necessarily convince average members to adopt

Confusion with innovators  Innovators are mistaken for opinion leaders  If opinion leaders are too innovative then they are perceived as too close to change agents and become less credible