The Big Picture…
Customer resistance poses one of the greatest threats to innovation success (Heidenreich & Kraemer). Yet it’s seldom surfaced in our playbooks. Classic adoption and diffusion frameworks assume that every innovation is inherently desirable—our only task is to persuade potential users. In reality, ignoring resistance leaves a blind spot: until barriers are removed, uptake simply won’t happen.

What Is Resistance?
Resistance isn’t merely the flip side of adoption. It precedes it. Potential adopters may postpone, reject, or even actively oppose an innovation before they ever consider using it. Only once those obstacles—be they perceived risks, conflicting habits, or doubts over value—are cleared can genuine adoption begin.

Updating Rogers’ Adoption Decision Process
To account for this, we should retrofit Rogers’ five-step model. After Persuasion but before Decision, insert an explicit Resistance Removal stage. This new phase captures the work needed to identify and mitigate barriers—so that the subsequent decision to adopt is both informed and unimpeded.

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And it turns out there is a hierarchy of resistance, ranging from postponing adoption through rejecting and onto actively opposing the innovation.

And behind each type of resistance there are several contributing factors. There are perceptions of physical, economic, functional and social risk. Whether the innovation goes against Traditions & Norms, deviates from current Usage Patterns, or misaligns with perceived images.

Just look at the reactions to the first version of Google Glass for a recent example of resistance.

Implications
We need to build minimizing resistance into our innovation activities—and do so before launch. We must also monitor for unexpected resistance after launch. Sometimes it’s as simple as getting the adopter to add an egg…

The Idea
Innovation resistance—users postponing, rejecting, or even objecting/demonstrating against the innovation—is the sadly neglected child.

We are all familiar with its sisters: diffusion and adoption. Yet innovations fail again and again, and ignoring resistance helps explain why. It also helps explain why 94 % of executives are disappointed with innovation performance. To secure adoption, we must:

• address Rogers’ classic adoption variables, and

• remove resistance (opposition, rejection, and postponement) to the innovation

Too often, we only see and tackle point 1. Yet:

“Innovation resistance seems to be a normal, instinctive response of consumers.”
— Sheth & Ram (1989)
“Customer resistance is usually one of the most significant risks to innovation.”
— Heidenreich & Kraemer (2015)

Users’ rejection of Google Glass is perhaps the most famous modern example of innovation resistance—but we once resisted printing presses, coffee, and refrigerators too.

What is resistance?
Spend only a short time in the world of innovation, and you’ll encounter essentials like adoption and diffusion, and learn to tailor strategies to different adopter types. We assume every innovation is positive, so our only task is to make people aware and encourage usage.

What we rarely discuss is resistance—how to recognize it, minimize it, and overcome it. We can define innovation resistance as:

Resistance to innovation is when users actively decide not to adopt the innovation (for reasons other than lack of value).

And we find that innovation resistance comes in a hierarchy, as shown in Figure 1.

I’m going to lean on Kleijnan et al.’s paper “An Exploration of Consumer Resistance to Innovation and Its Antecedents” for definitions, since they reviewed and synthesized numerous studies. For real-world examples, Sanchez, Williams and Andreu’s “Customer Resistance to Tourism Innovations: Entrepreneurs’ Understanding and Management Strategies” gathers insights from 57 tourism entrepreneurs (B2C and B2B), and Juma’s book “Innovation and Its Enemies: Why People Resist New Technologies” chronicles 600 years of push-back against new tools. Of course, the ideal is zero resistance—but let’s start with the next-best scenario: postponement.

Postponement
Maybe you recognize an innovation’s value but feel that conditions must change before you can adopt it. In 2019, many saw the promise of electric cars—lower emissions, sleek design—but postponed buying until range and charging infrastructure improved. Innovators and early adopters have taken the plunge; the early majority is inching in; but most are still waiting for “EV 2.0.”
In the tourism study, chefs understood how waste-reduction tech could cut costs, yet postponement arose from social risk: no one wanted to admit they were a “wasteful” cook. Only later—via apps like Karma or waste-upcycling restaurants in Finland—did that stigma begin to fade.

Rejection
Rejection differs from simple non-adoption due to low perceived value. Here, users form a strong disinclination to use the innovation (Rogers 2013). Dyson’s bladeless hand dryers save water and feel futuristic, yet hoteliers rejected full-body dryers built on the same tech—too far from guest expectations, and no one wanted “the weird hotel” reputation in an Instagram era.

Opposition
At its extreme, resistance becomes active sabotage. Nuclear power, margarine, GM crops—and even vaccines—have sparked organized campaigns against them. Davidson and Walley term this innovation sabotage, with the Luddites’ 19th-century machine-breaking as the classic example.

When do we encounter resistance?
Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovation (Figure 2) maps adoption stages—Knowledge, Persuasion, Decision, Implementation, Confirmation—but resistance can surface at any point, centering on the Decision phase. Only by spotting and dismantling barriers there can true adoption follow.

It is at this point that an actor either adopts the innovation or does not. Sadly, Rogers labels the “does not adopt” decision simply as rejection, which can be misleading when we’re talking about resistance. Adoption is defined as “the full use of an innovation as the best course of action available,” whereas rejection is “a decision not to adopt.”

Rejection Decision
Rogers distinguishes two forms of rejection:

• Active rejection, when a user tries the innovation and then chooses to abandon it.

• Passive rejection, when a user decides not to adopt without ever trying it.

Rejection typically occurs because one or more of Rogers’ adoption variables haven’t been satisfied—users find the innovation too complex, see insufficient value, or encounter other barriers. This dynamic explains why an initially embraced innovation may later be discarded, or why a previously dismissed idea might be adopted once those barriers are addressed.

Where does resistance fit?
Rejection driven by “not enough value” or “too difficult to use” stems from Rogers’ classic adoption factors. Resistance, however, arises from a different set of concerns:

• Social risk (Will I look foolish using it? e.g. Google Glass?)

• Safety risk (Will others see me? e.g. Sinclair C5 electric tricycle?)

• Moral or legal risk (Will I be treated like a criminal? e.g. self-service supermarket checkouts?)

These resistance factors sit alongside—but distinct from—the adoption variables. As Ram (1987) reminds us in “A Model of Innovation Resistance”:

“Adoption begins only after the initial resistance offered by the consumers is overcome.”

By inserting an explicit Resistance Removal stage between Persuasion and Decision, we update Rogers’ process to reflect that true adoption follows not only persuasion but also the active clearing of resistance (see Figure 3).

What I am saying is this
To achieve adoption, we must both address Rogers’ classic adoption variables and remove opposition, rejection, and postponement to the innovation. Too often—thanks to the prevailing literature and a host of innovation consultants—we address only the first point and rarely take action on the second.

What are the reasons behind resistance?
In my view, two papers provide the best foundations for understanding innovation resistance. The first is Sheth and Ram’s “Consumer Resistance to Innovations: The Marketing Problem and Its Solutions,” and the second is Kleijnan et al.’s “An Exploration of Consumer Resistance to Innovation and Its Antecedents.” From the latter we gain an excellent literature review, and from the former solid theoretical foundations.

Sheth and Ram’s view
Sheth and Ram identify two primary sources of resistance. First, the innovation may demand significant changes to consumers’ day-to-day lives. Second, the new idea can conflict with users’ existing belief systems. They frame resistance as the result of specific barriers, which they classify under two broad categories—functional and psychological—and illustrate in Figure 1.

Within functional barriers, we find usage, value and risk barriers. And within psychological barriers, we find image and tradition.

This article came out in 1989. Let’s jump forward twenty years and see how things have evolved.

Kleijnan et al.’s view
Kleijnan et al.’s article is fascinating to read. In it, we find a comprehensive literature survey that updates us from Sheth and Ram’s initial views. And we see the seven reasons shown in Figure 5 that are behind potential resistance.

Kleijnan et al. pinpoint four risk-related drivers of resistance. First, physical risks, where users fear bodily harm or safety issues (think concerns around novel medical devices or genetically modified foods). Second, economic risks, as consumers worry an innovation will waste their money or rapidly become obsolete—common in high-tech markets where prices can drop and replacements arrive quickly. Third, functional risks, reflecting doubts that the product will deliver full capability at launch (for example, whether to buy this year’s smartphone model when next year’s promises “complete” features). And fourth, social risks, where people hesitate because they fear negative judgments from their peers—Google Glass v1 famously stumbled here, whereas Snap Spectacles succeeded by making its camera use overtly playful and socially accepted.

Resistance doesn’t stop at risks. When an innovation forces people outside their established traditions and cultural norms, push-back is almost guaranteed. Juma’s Innovation and Its Enemies recounts how printing technology stalled in regions that forbade reproducing sacred texts—showing that even a straightforward translation of a useful invention can founder on deep-rooted beliefs.

Our usage patterns further cement inertia. We’re creatures of habit, and any product that demands new routines—no matter how valuable—runs the risk of postponement or outright refusal until the perceived hassle outweighs the benefit.

Beyond that, perceived image plays its own role. Consumers carry mental associations about brands, technologies, or countries of origin; if an innovation clashes with those images, it faces an uphill battle. Honda’s early reputation for small, economical cars in the U.S. had to be carefully reshaped before its performance-oriented models could gain traction.

By mapping these antecedents against the hierarchy of resistance—postponement, passive or active rejection, and outright opposition—we see which factors most often trigger each form of push-back. You can explore this detailed mapping in Figure 6.

It is not a definitive answer. But it gives a framework on which to have a useful discussion. In use, I would look at all seven antecedents and see how to minimize. To make it simpler to walkthrough we’ll take each type of resistance at a time, starting with postponement.

Why an adopter might postpone
Postponement often comes down to economic risks and usage patterns. High upfront costs or the expectation that prices will fall (e.g., waiting for next-gen EV batteries or discounted smartphones) encourage a “wait and see” approach. Likewise, changing established routines—learning new workflows or integrating fresh technology into daily life—creates friction, so people delay adoption until trial options, clear time-savings, or peer endorsements lower the effort required.

Why an adopter might reject

Many innovations are rejected outright because the perceived costs—whether financial, functional, or social—simply outweigh any anticipated benefit. Consumers may conclude that the price tag will never justify the value (economic risk), worry that the product will underperform or break down (functional risk), or fear looking foolish or drawing negative attention among peers (social risk). When these three concerns combine, potential users often decide there’s no point even trying.

Beyond risk calculations, deep-seated traditions and norms frequently trigger rejection. If an innovation clashes with cultural expectations, professional protocols, or community values, people push back to defend the familiar. Hoteliers who spurned full-body dryers didn’t deny the technology’s utility so much as protect their establishment’s reputation; similarly, attempts to replace time-honored rituals—whether in dining, worship, or work—often meet a wall of disapproval.

Finally, entrenched usage patterns can lock in rejection. When adopting a new tool demands reshaping daily routines—learning new interfaces, restructuring workflows, or adding complexity—many will refuse rather than reorganize their habits. Even if the innovation promises significant gains, the friction of breaking old habits can prompt a firm “no thanks.”

Opposition represents the most intense form of resistance—more than merely saying “no,” it’s an active campaign against the innovation. Google Glass illustrates this vividly: beyond the social awkwardness that led many to refuse it in public settings, Kernaghan’s “Google Glass: An Evaluation of Social Acceptance” highlights how bycatching criticism of privacy intrusions and the device’s constant recording capability spurred organized pushback, with establishments banning the glasses outright.

In outright opposition the usual functional and social concerns are joined by physical risk: fears that the innovation could cause direct harm. With Google Glass, users and bystanders worried about accidents caused by distracted wearers, or potential eye strain from the heads-up display. When these tangible safety worries intersect with doubts about performance and uneasy social optics, detractors often mobilize to block adoption entirely.

Deeply rooted traditions & norms and perceived image also fuel opposition. Any innovation that feels to violate established cultural rules—or that carries a stigmatized brand image—can provoke strong counter-movements. Whether it’s community leaders decrying a technology as morally suspect, or consumers fearing that a product clashes with their self-identity, these belief-driven barriers can turn quiet refusal into vocal protest.

At first, Betty Crocker’s team assumed the solution was better advertising and clearer messaging—after all, the cake mix was technically flawless, so consumers simply needed to understand its benefits. That mindset, however, ignored the real barrier: housewives felt disconnected from a product that seemed to do all the work, leaving them with nothing to contribute and a nagging sense of guilt for “cheating” their guests out of a homemade cake.

Enter psychologist Ernest Dichter. He recognized that the core issue wasn’t price or performance but emotional resistance: users needed a way to feel involved in the baking process. In the social context of the 1960s, skipping the egg felt like a shortcut too far, threatening the pride and ritual of home cooking.

His counterintuitive fix was to make the mix slightly harder to use—remove the powdered egg and ask the baker to crack and stir in a real one. Suddenly, housewives regained ownership of the process, felt validated in their role, and embraced the product on their own terms. Sales took off, proving that sometimes the best way to overcome resistance is not by removing all effort but by giving users just enough to latch onto emotionally.

It is a perfect example of why resistance is different from not adopting.

When consumers skipped Betty Crocker’s all-in-one cake mix, it wasn’t because they failed to grasp its advantages or doubted its efficacy. Their hesitation sprang from emotional resistance—an innovation that eliminated every step felt like it deprived them of their role and pride in the baking ritual. By reintroducing that small task—adding a real egg—Dichter didn’t just market the product differently; he dismantled the very barrier that kept users at bay. This story shows that resistance isn’t mere indifference or lack of awareness; it’s a distinct set of psychological and social hurdles that must be understood on their own terms.

Wrapping Up

Innovation resistance lies at the heart of why so many promising ideas stall before they ever gain traction. We can no longer take for granted that a clear relative advantage or a robust diffusion plan will secure adoption. Resistance arises because innovation, by definition, demands change—and change is inherently difficult.

This resistance unfolds in a three-tier hierarchy—postponement, rejection, and opposition—each driven by different combinations of risk perceptions (physical, economic, functional, social) and challenges to deeply held beliefs (traditions and norms, ingrained usage patterns, or fixed self-images).

Our path forward is twofold. First, we must embed strategies to minimize resistance at the design and pre-launch stages—anticipating emotional, cultural, and usage hurdles before they materialize. Second, we must remain vigilant post-launch, ready to manage emerging objections through ongoing engagement, adaptation, and support.

Only by treating resistance as a deliberate, addressable phase in the innovation journey—not as an unfortunate afterthought—can we hope to close the gap between promise and performance. (Addressing resistance tactics in detail will be the focus of my next article.)