Social Barriers to Innovation in Higher Education: Key Stakeholders’ Perception

In this paper the results of an ascertaining experiment are presented. The experiment took place in Samara State University of Economics, Russia. The purpose of this study was to determine the individual barriers to technological innovations within higher educational institutions and to find possible remedies that could overcome the resistance to innovation among key internal stakeholders of universities. The methodological approach taken in this study is a mixed methodology based on content analysis of students’ interviews and mathematical statistics. The cohort of students, who previously took part in the distance learning projects, was examined for their negative perceptions of technological innovations. The students’ responses were then analysed and, the factors that could block the innovation were selected. The data analysis revealed the prevalence of non-affective barriers over the affective ones. This study suggests that innovation managers, who are responsible for implementing distance learning at universities, should closely monitor social factors that could block innovative projects, and support sustainable communication process with the internal stakeholders.