Conceptualizing customers’ responses to innovations: how adoption and resistance differ
(A2024-118112)

AUTHORS

Juliette van Acker, Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University; Bas Hillebrand, Radboud University; Simone Ritter, Radboud University; Mark Wiering, Radboud University; Rob Holland, Radboud University

ABSTRACT

Despite 60 years of research on customer responses to innovations, there is still a great deal of ambiguity about the nature of and relationship between adoption and resistance. Many articles implicitly assume that resistance is seen as the opposite of adoption, while some studies suggest that resistance is not the opposite of adoption. This conceptual paper addresses this conceptual discrepancy and provides two contributions. First, it offers a new conceptualization of adoption and resistance that is conceptually nuanced and helps to understand why they are two different responses. Second, it elucidates the implications of this viewpoint for both theory advancement and empirical research. It highlights the practical significance of the existing theoretical contributions to innovation managers and marketers and lays out directions for future study.