Resistance to Innovations : Psychological and Social Origins

Abstract

Corporations develop new ideas, products, services or practices, termed innovations, which occur as discontinuous or continuous advances in response to competitive pressures, and attempt to promote these innovations, but many consumers refuse to accept innovations(Lee, 1994). Consumer resistance to innovations can be investigated from many points of view: the characteristics of innovations or adoptors, communication mechanisms, or the socio-cultural system. In this paper, we focus on the investigation of psychological and social origins of resistance, which exist in individual and group forms. Significantly, we argue that consumers resist innovations asd individuals and as members of a group in different ways at different stages of decision making. We suggest that it is important for marketers to understand both individual resistance and group resistance in order to successfully bring innovations into global markets.