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1. Project goal
In view of the steadily increasing innovation expenditures of the German economy and the associated danger of possible misallocation of resources due to failed innovations, knowledge of the relevant determinants of innovation success appears to be indispensable for systematic and successful innovation management. The significant relevance of the identification of innovation success factors also manifests itself in a large scientific research interest, which has led to a considerable number of publications in the field of empirical research on innovation success factors since the late 1950s.
Despite the considerable activities in science and corporate practice, innovative new products are usually afflicted with a high failure rate of up to 90%. The sufficient condition for the market success of innovations is their acceptance and adoption by consumers.
This research project aims to identify possible forms of rejection along the adoption process. Subsequently, possible reasons for the identified forms of customer rejection are to be identified in an explorative investigation and quantified by means of a large-scale study.
Based on these adoption barriers, suitable strategies for overcoming them will then be developed and finally tested for their effectiveness in experiments.
2. Research questions
- What barriers to adoption operate in the early stages of the adoption process?
- What barriers to adoption operate in the middle stages of the adoption process?
- What barriers to adoption operate in the late stages of the adoption process?
- What interventions to reduce barriers to adoption are most effective in the early stages of the adoption process?
- What interventions to reduce barriers to adoption are most effective in the middle stages of the adoption process?
- What interventions to reduce barriers to adoption are most effective in the late stages of the adoption process?
Work package 1
The aim of the first work package is to identify those factors that are responsible for the emergence of negative judgment dimensions and thus account for the subsequent non-purchase of an innovation. In a first explorative study, possible causes of consumer resistance to innovations will be identified. For this purpose, an experimental design is set up, within which the reactions of test persons are recorded via video and by applying the method of thinking aloud.
A quantitative consumer survey is then conducted to assess the relative influence of consumer resistance causes on negative attitudes and decisions at different stages of the adoption process.
Consequently, the result of this two-stage research design is a typologization of adoption barriers and a determination of their relative importance in influencing adverse decisions at different stages of the adoption process.
Work package 2
The purpose of this work package is to extend the contribution of the study by developing approaches for the barriers to adoption identified in work package 1 that aim to overcome them.
Subsequently, these approaches will be tested for their effectiveness within the framework of experimental designs. The focus will be on the adoption barriers in the respective phases that are rated as most critical for the emergence of innovation resistance. The approaches to overcoming the selected barriers to adoption will be investigated in terms of their applicability to different product categories in order to increase the generalizability of the study results.
The insights gained here are intended to show companies the effectiveness of selected approaches for overcoming adoption barriers in early, middle and late phases of the adoption process. Companies will thus be enabled to prevent the risk of innovation failure and the associated misallocation of resources.