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Anticipated behavioral change in the innovation decision process
Abstract
This study explored the nature of discontinuity in innovations by examining whether consumers' cognitive schema development affected their ability to make a decision to symbolically accept or reject an innovation, based on high and low levels of information, and whether that decision would be positive or negative. A three-phased approach was used, first eliciting cognitive scripts for the consumption process using the innovation and for the activities which the innovation would replace, next validating the innovation script, and finally testing the hypotheses related to differences between high and low schema groups. The results did not reveal a direct relationship between schema development and ability to make a decision, although consumer's age and creativity level appeared to interact with the amount of information they had received about the innovation to affect the degree of certainty they felt about their decision. Consumers with high schema development were no more likely to adopt the innovation than those with lower schema development, and in fact there was some tendency for those with high schema development to reject the innovation. These findings are in direct contrast to propositions made by Gatignon and Robertson (1985), which predicted that consumers with more well developed schemata would adopt an innovation earlier. Consumers' anticipated regret and satisfaction regarding adoption and nonadoption situations also was explored; consumers tended to anticipate greater regret or satisfaction for adoption decisions than for nonadoption decisions, but no differences in regret levels between high and low schema groups were detected. In general, the findings of this study suggest that consumers anticipate the behavioral process and possible outcomes associated with innovations, and that in the case of discontinuous innovations which present ideas inconsistent with a consumer's current beliefs or lifestyles, resistance to this change may occur. A primary implication is the importance of avoiding pro-innovation bias in marketing new products in order to understand consumers' perceptions of possible alternative scenarios which could be associated with adoption and their resistance to change.
Subject Area
Marketing
Recommended Citation
Rittenburg, Terri Lynn, "Anticipated behavioral change in the innovation decision process" (1988). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8818651.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8818651