Purpose – Rogers’ diffusion of innovations theory typically concerns attributes that steer the process of inducing new ideas through various communication channels, which essentially diffuse different types of innovations into different systems. After Rogers, Tornatzky, and Klein presented 30 such attributes (five of which were Rogers’) that steered the process of innovation diffusion. The purpose of this paper is to use a systematic approach in reviewing the literature pertaining to these 30 attributes, followed by the meta-analysis of the articles collated in relevance to these attributes. Design/methodology/approach – Publications in the time frame of 1996-mid 2011 in this field of literature have been shortlisted for this review. A total of 223 innovation articles are studied in detail to collate the relevant data needed to reflect on the various informative trends exhibited by the shortlisted innovation attributes. Findings – An analysis of these trends will be carried out across three different categories – first, subjective analysis; second, seven features of an ideal innovation attribute study (approach, dependent variable, study type, instrument, measure, number of attributes, number of innovations, adopting unit); and third, antecedents and descendants of the innovation attributes, which altogether will be used deduce findings, limitations, and suggestions for future research from this review. Originality/value – No recent study has analysed existing research on less explored innovation adoption attributes. Therefore, analysis and findings presented in this research is original and will make adequate contribution to the existing research on this topic. Findings presented in this submission would be helpful for researchers, authors, reviewers, and editors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]