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Resistance to Innovation
Its Sources and Manifestations
By Shaul Oreg, Jacob Goldenberg The University of Chicago Press
Copyright © 2015 The University of Chicago
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-226-63260-5
CHAPTER 1
It's Not the Innovation, It's the Adopter
Why Some People Are More Likely Than Others to Resist
Individuals' unreasonable commitment to archaic practices is not uncommon. Let us describe a personal experience from the perspective of the first author (S. O.): Until a few years ago, a dear colleague would still do his work using a 1999 computer with an Intel 80486 microprocessor (a.k.a. the i486, which was the predecessor of the Pentium I chip). He used a fourteen-inch tube monitor, the storage devices on his computer were restricted to floppy disks, and obviously the computer lacked USB ports. As a faculty member in the department, he could have easily asked the IT staff to replace his computer with a newer one, yet he chose not to. He liked his computer. He was used to it, and he believed it comfortably served his needs.
I couldn't understand how he could get any work done on it. He had to undertake complicated maneuvers to transfer content from his computer to those of others, he couldn't install newer versions of software, and overall, the computer was extremely slow. I kept trying to convince him that he'd be better off with a new system, but he was not to be convinced. For him, as long as he managed to get his old software to work, he didn't seem to mind about the rest, even if this required him to acquire peculiar rituals and to restart his computer every so often. It seemed clear that there was something more going on. Rather than lacking the need for a new computer, it was clear that other factors predisposed him to stick so adamantly to his old one. When telling Jacob (my coauthor) this story, Jacob realized that he too has a close colleague, a leading marketing scholar, who exhibits similar behaviors. One of his prime research interests is innovation adoption, yet he is proud to be the last person at his university who has used transparences and an overhead projector, until he was practically forced to switch to PowerPoint presentations. Furthermore, much like the case above, his computer was sufficiently old to be the only one to survive a virus attack that infected all of the computers at his school. He is proud of both stories and exemplifies the strategic (and proud) Laggard.
It is therefore apparent that one reason for resistance lies within the individual. As we discuss in the following chapters, alongside its advantages, the adoption of an innovation typically has drawbacks, with numerous reasons to resist it. At the same time, responses to any given innovation vary widely across individuals. Some people are more inclined than others to resist the mere notion of change. Such a predisposition to resist becomes most apparent at the extremes, once the majority of individuals has already made the transition to the new situation, and stands bewildered when faced with those who insist on holding on to the past.
It was cases such as those presented above that piqued my interest in the internal factors that drive some individuals to resist the mere notion of change. At that time, the literature on individuals' resistance to change and innovation was not abundant. Most works discussed resistance from a macro perspective, focusing on the behavior of organizations or markets rather than that of individuals (e.g., Hannan and Freeman 1984). There were some works, however, that looked at the adoption of innovation and change as a function of individuals' personality. Most of these works focused on identifying those who are early to adopt (Innovators) versus those who resist innovations (Laggards). For example, Everett Rogers (1995) proposed that early adopters are empathetic, rational, and well able to cope with uncertainty. David Midgley and Grahame Dowling (1978; 1993) added to these attributes and suggested that Innovators are also relatively high on traits such as achievement seeking and self-monitoring.
Empirical research has been conducted from this perspective and has linked early adoption to traits such as novelty seeking (Manning, Bearden, and Madden 1995); tolerance for ambiguity, low cognitive rigidity, and low dogmatism (Jacoby 1971; Raju 1980); and cognitive innovativeness (Goldsmith, Freiden, and Eastman 1995; Im, Bayus, and Mason 2003; Marcati, Guido, and Peluso 2008; see table 1.1). This research was motivated by the desire to understand the psychological mechanisms that account for early adoption. While we can be relatively certain that Laggards, typically defined as those within the market who are last to adopt an innovation (Rogers 1995), differ in their characteristics from Innovators, who are first to adopt, we still lack a framework that focuses on Lagging. In line with this view, more than twenty years ago Midgley and Dowling (1993) noted: "It is interesting that as a field we believe the rejection of new products to be common, yet there are few studies that directly address this phenomenon. Clearly research on rejection is needed and is likely to have a high payoff in terms of improving our models" (623–24). Although some exceptions exist, as in a study linking consumers' self-efficacy to resistance to technological innovations (Ellen, Bearden, and Sharma 1991), Midgley and Dowling's criticism is as relevant today as it was then. It is true for research on Laggards in general and for the dispositional perspective of Laggards in particular. Rather than say what Laggards are not, it would be valuable to say what they are. Trying to explain why some individuals resist change and innovation may yield insights that otherwise escape us when we focus solely on explaining early adoption and the eager pursuit of change. Now this is not to say we cannot infer characteristics of the dispositional Laggard from studies of Innovators, yet as we will describe shortly, several of Laggards' characteristics are notably more than the mere opposite of the characteristics of Innovators.
I (S. O.) therefore began my investigation of the resistance to change concept, with an ultimate goal of empirically establishing a construct-describing individuals' dispositional inclination to resist change. What are the factors that lead some individuals to resist the changes and innovations that others readily embrace? How can we conceptualize the "resistant individual"? What is this individual like? To empirically explore these issues, this investigation followed a rigorous set of scale-development procedures to establish the dispositional resistance to change construct and its corresponding measurement scale. These procedures are described in detail below.
Development of the Resistance to Change (RTC) Scale
Item Generation and Scale Administration
To start off in the investigation, I prepared an exploratory study, with the aim of establishing the construct's dimensionality. I then developed the measurement scale following prescriptions from DeVellis (1991) and Hinkin (1998) for item generation, survey design, item reduction, and determination of internal consistency. Based on the available literature on individuals' reactions to change, I generated items to tap each of six conceptual categories:
1. Reluctance to lose control. A number of researchers emphasized the role of control and its loss as the primary cause of resistance (e.g., Conner 1992), stating that in many situations individuals will resist the imposition of change, which involves the removal of control over their life situation. Correspondingly, organizational studies that advocate employee involvement and participation in organizational decision making as a means of overcoming resistance to change (e.g., Coch and French 1948; Sagie and Koslowsky 2000) seem to be focusing on this source of resistance.
2. Cognitive rigidity. Other researchers have undertaken a cognitive perspective on the resistance to change phenomenon, arguing that resistance is a result of individuals' internal schema regarding the notion of change (Bartunek, Lacey, and Wood. 1992; Bartunek and Moch 1987; Lau and Woodman 1995). The concept of dogmatism (Rokeach 1960) nicely captures such a source of resistance. Dogmatic individuals are characterized by rigidity and closed-mindedness and are therefore less willing and able to adjust to new situations.
3. Lack of psychological resilience. A third source of resistance has to do with individuals' resilience and evaluation of the self. Resilient individuals may be less reluctant to initiate changes in their lives because to do so is to admit that past practices may have been faulty. Such willingness to potentially lose face (e.g., Kanter 1985; Zaltman and Duncan 1977) requires that the individual feel confident enough about him- or herself to admit possible mistakes. Furthermore, considering the added stress that change situations often incur, personal resilience is necessary for maintaining adequate levels of performance during change. Corresponding with such a rationale, resilient individuals were found more willing to participate in an organizational change (Wanberg and Banas 2000) and exhibited improved coping with it (Judge et al. 1999).
4. Intolerance to the adjustment period involved in change. A distinct aspect of individuals' psychological resilience is their ability to adjust to new situations. Some have argued that people resist change because of the added work it entails in the short term (Kanter 1985). As we will discuss later (see chapter 2 on the role of perceived threats), new tasks typically require learning and adjustment, and some individuals are more willing and able to endure this adjustment period than others. Those with a greater reluctance to endure this period are more likely to exhibit resistance to change.
5. Preference for low levels of stimulation and novelty. Several studies in psychology addressed concepts such as novelty seeking (Pearson 1970), sensation seeking (Zuckerman and Link 1968), and arousal seeking (Mehrabian and Russell 1973), all of which pertain to individual differences in the degree of stimulation people desire and seek. In a highly cited study, Raju (1980) demonstrated that individuals' optimum stimulation level is associated with exploratory behavior in the consumer context, such as adoption of innovations, brand switching, and variety seeking. Accordingly, it is reasonable to expect that individuals with lower levels of optimal stimulation would be more likely to resist changes.
6. Reluctance to give up old habits. In the context of resistance to organizational change, several theorists propose the reluctance to give up old habits as a common source of resistance to change (e.g., Tichy 1983; Watson 1971). Some explained this reluctance by suggesting that "familiarity breeds comfort" (Harrison 1968; Harrison and Zajonc 1970). This is because new stimuli may render familiar responses incompatible with the new situation. Such incompatibility may produce stress, which can then become associated with the new stimuli. This association is one of the mechanisms through which habits are formed and maintained, which serves as yet another source of resistance to change.
These six categories, each of which constitutes a broad reason for resisting change, were used as the basis for formulating items for the resistance to change scale (Oreg 2003). Items were designed to distinguish those who are inclined to resist change from those who are not. As with the development of many scales, the idea was to provide examples of responses that are typical for the construct being assessed. In the present case, these involved resistant and non-resistant reactions to a variety of change situations. Respondents were asked to rate the degree to which they could identify with each reaction. Because reactions to change can take on many forms, including affective manifestations (for example, feeling anxious about a change), cognitive evaluations (for example, believing that a change is of little value), and behavioral responses (for example, actively resisting the change), it was important to include items tapping each of these reaction forms (see table 1.2).
For each of the six resistance sources mentioned above, four to ten items were created. Four additional items were created to tap individuals' general orientation toward change (for example, "generally, change is good," "I generally dislike changes"). This process resulted in an initial pool of forty-eight items. Five researchers with experience in the scale-development process then reviewed these items. They were asked to assess the appropriateness of the items, looking out for ambiguous wording, double-barreled items, and redundant items. As a result, six items were discarded, two were rephrased, and two new items were generated, reducing the pool to forty-four.
Response options for the items ranged from 1 ("strongly disagree") to 6 ("strongly agree"). Using a snowball sampling technique, which is convenient for reaching a diverse set of respondents, the scale was administered to 226 individuals from a broad range of occupations and personal backgrounds. Fifty-four percent of respondents were men, and respondents' age ranged from eighteen to sixty-seven (M = 31, SD = 13.5).
RTC Scale Dimensionality
Following the removal of eleven items that yielded particularly low correlations (r < 0.4) with all other items (Hinkin 1998), an Exploratory Factor Analysis was conducted, using a Principle Components Analysis with an oblique rotation. The oblique rotation was selected because trait dimensions are conceptually related to one another. Items that did not load significantly on any factor or that similarly loaded on more than one factor were discarded. Ultimately, a four-factor solution was obtained (see table 1.3).
The first factor contained items that pertained to one's preference for routines (for example, "I'll take a routine day over a day full of unexpected events any time"). More specifically it involved individuals' behavioral tendency to form and maintain consistent schedules and stable routines in their lives. The items it included derived from the literature on optimal levels of stimulation (Goldsmith 1984; Raju 1980) and habits (Harrison 1968; Watson 1971).
The second factor contained items pertaining to individuals' emotional reactions to change (for example, "When I am informed of a change of plans, I tense up a bit"). It pertained to how individuals typically feel when encountering change, with a specific focus on the degree of stress they experience during change. This factor comprised items pertaining to psychological resilience (e.g., Ashford 1988; Judge et al. 1999) and a reluctance to lose control (Conner 1992).
The third factor consisted of items that tap, in one way or another, the degree to which individuals focus on a change's short-term hassles, versus long-term benefits (for example, "I often feel uncomfortable even about changes that may potentially improve my life"). For each of the items, endorsement suggests a preference for the immediate relief from anxiety over the potential long-term benefits of the change. In a sense, these items involve an irrational form of resistance to change in that they all describe resistance that arises in spite of one's awareness to the change's overall potential benefits. Items in this factor derived from the literature on psychological resilience (e.g., Ashford 1988; Judge et al. 1999) and a reluctance to lose control (Conner 1992).
The fourth factor included three items that pertain to individuals' cognitive flexibility versus rigidity. The three items addressed the ease and frequency with which individuals change their minds (for example, "I don't change my mind easily"). It therefore taps content similar to that tapped by scales of dogmatism (Rokeach 1960) and the need for cognitive closure (Kruglanski 1989).
Each of the scale's factors highlights a different aspect of resistance or a different reason for individuals to resist change. While the RTC dimensions are distinct, they are nevertheless related to one another and are all part of the same overarching construct. The four-dimensional structure suggests that those who typically hold a negative orientation toward change, who hold on to the old ways of doing things, and who tend to avoid initiating change in their lives, do so because they enjoy their routines and feel more comfortable having them; they feel uncomfortable and even threatened when change is imposed upon them; they tend to focus on the short-term inconveniences in change rather than its potential long-term benefits; and they find it difficult to let go of preconceptions and preestablished ideas and plans. However, before these inferences about the trait's dimensionality could be made more conclusively, the findings of the above study needed to be replicated and the scale that emerged required a set of further validation procedures.
Validating the RTC Scale's Structure
A separate set of studies was designed to validate the scale's structure. In two samples, one of university employees and another of undergraduates, Confirmatory Factor Analyses (CFA) supported the four-dimensional structure of the scale (Oreg 2003, studies 2 and 3). More recently, the scale's structure was tested in samples of undergraduates from seventeen countries (Oreg et al. 2008; see table 1.4). This test answers the need to validate psychological constructs across cultures. Given that people from different cultures often differ in how they typically think, feel, and behave, before a construct can be validly interpreted in different cultures, it is necessary to ensure that it is perceived in the same way across these cultures.
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Excerpted from Resistance to Innovation by Shaul Oreg, Jacob Goldenberg. Copyright © 2015 The University of Chicago. Excerpted by permission of The University of Chicago Press.
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