Consumer resistance to innovation—a behavioral reasoning perspective

Behavioral research shows that reasons for and reasons against adopting innovations differ qualitatively, and they influence consumers’ decisions in dissimilar ways. This has important implications for theorists and managers, as overcoming barriers that cause resistance to innovation calls for marketing approaches other than promoting reasons for adoption of new products and services. Consumer behavior frameworks in diffusion of innovation (DOI) studies have largely failed to distinctly account for reasons against adoption. Indeed, no study to date has tested the relative influence of adoption and resistance factors in a single framework. This research aims to address this shortcoming by applying a novel consumer behavior model (i.e., behavioral reasoning theory) to test the relative influence of both reasons for and, importantly, reasons against adoption in consumers’ innovation adoption decisions. Based on two empirical studies, one with a product and a second with a service innovation, findings demonstrate that behavioral reasoning theory provides a suitable framework to model the mental processing of innovation adoption. Implications for managers and researchers are discussed.