Every year, about 25,000 new products are introduced in the United States. Most of these products fail - at considerable expense to the companies that produce them. Such failures are typically thought to result from consumers' resistance to innovation, but marketers have tended to focus instead on consumers who show little resistance, despite these "early adopters" comprising only 20 percent of the consumer population. Shaul Oreg and Jacob Goldenberg bring the insights of marketing and organizational behavior to bear on the attitudes and behaviors of the remaining 80 percent who resist innovation. The authors identify two competing definitions of resistance: In marketing, resistance denotes a reluctance to adopt a worthy new product, or one that offers a clear benefit and carries little or no risk. In the field of organizational behavior, employees are defined as resistant if they are unwilling to implement changes regardless of the reasons behind their reluctance. Using real-life examples and seeking to clarify the act of rejecting a new product from the reasons - rational or not - consumers may have for doing so, Oreg and Goldenberg propose a more coherent definition of resistance less encumbered by subjective, context-specific factors and personality traits. This tighter definition makes it possible to disentangle resistance from its sources and ultimately offers a richer understanding of consumers' underlying motivations.

About the Author
Shaul Oreg is associate professor of organizational behavior at the School of Business Administration at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is a coeditor of The Psychology of Organizational Change. Jacob Goldenberg is professor of marketing at the Arison School of Business at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, visiting professor at Columbia Business School, and the author or coauthor of several books, including Inside the Box.

Reviews
"A fascinating read. The real-world examples are supported by a review of a diverse range of scientific research, making this an interesting and useful read for entrepreneurs, product managers, researchers, and people who are generally interested in understanding the behavior of the majority of consumers." (Mel Fugate, Southern Methodist University)



Book Information
ISBN 9780226632605
Author Shaul Oreg
Format Hardback
Page Count 208
Imprint University of Chicago Press
Publisher The University of Chicago Press
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 24mm * 16mm * 2mm