Failure - the Mother of Innovation: How Resistance to Change and Status Quo Satisfaction Drive Passive Innovation Resistance

The literature on innovation adoption largely follows the assumption that consumers are principally open to change and thus interested in evaluating and eventually adopting new products. However, empirical studies show that new products are usually associated with a high failure rate up to 90%. We argue that passive innovation resistance is the dominant consumer response, which has to be overcome before new product adoption can start. Passive innovation resistance is seen as evolving from an individual’s resistance to change disposition and a status quo satisfaction in the moment of awareness. Within five empirical studies, we show that passive innovation resistance is a strong inhibitor for innovative behavior and new product adoption, driving perceptions of product-specific barriers and reducing positive attitude formation within new product evaluation. Furthermore, we evaluate the effectiveness of several marketing instruments to enhance positive attitude formation at different levels of passive innovation resistance.

Citation:

Sven Heidenreich and Matthias Handrich (2011) ,"Failure - the Mother of Innovation: How Resistance to Change and Status Quo Satisfaction Drive Passive Innovation Resistance ", in AP - Asia-Pacific Advances in Consumer Research Volume 9, eds. Zhihong Yi, Jing Jian Xiao, and June Cotte and Linda Price, Duluth, MN : Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 227-229.