Model of Innovation Resistance - Ram & Sheth (1989)

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Citation Information

Why Was the Model Created?

Sundaresan Ram developed the Innovation Resistance Model to address a critical gap in innovation adoption research. While Rogers’ highly influential Diffusion of Innovations theory explained why innovations spread through populations, it centered heavily on innovation characteristics and diffusion processes. What remained underexamined was the fundamental question: why do individuals resist innovations despite their objective benefits? This question became increasingly urgent as technologically superior products sometimes failed in markets while technically inferior solutions succeeded.

Prior adoption literature implicitly assumed that innovations offered clear advantages and that diffusion represented a natural, inevitable process. Those who resisted were often portrayed as conservative, cautious, or backward-thinking. Ram’s insight was different: innovation resistance is not a personality defect or conservative bias but rather a rational response to perceived risks and costs that innovations introduce.

The classic example is the Betamax videocassette recorder. Betamax offered superior technical quality compared to VHS yet failed catastrophically in the marketplace. Why? Because potential adopters perceived greater risks in Betamax adoption, including economic risk (uncertain cost structure), social risk (VHS was becoming the standard), and functional risk (smaller media library). This real-world failure exemplified that technical superiority alone cannot overcome multiple, reinforcing resistance factors.

Ram grounded his work in consumer behavior theory, proposing that innovation resistance arises from the interaction of innovation characteristics, consumer characteristics, and the mechanisms through which innovations are communicated. Ram and Sheth (1989) later reorganized these factors into five specific barriers - usage, value, risk, tradition, and image - grouped under functional and psychological categories. Rather than treating resistance as a barrier to overcome through persuasion, Ram posited that resistance reflects meaningful concerns that organizations should understand and address. This shift from viewing resistance as irrational to understanding it as rational risk assessment represented a fundamental reorientation in innovation adoption theory.

Core Concepts and Definitions

Ram (1987) proposed that innovation resistance arises from three interacting factor categories. Ram and Sheth (1989) later reorganized resistance into five specific barriers grouped under two categories. Together, these publications establish the core concepts:

Ram (1987): Three-Factor Model

• Innovation Characteristics: Properties of the innovation itself that affect resistance. Consumer-dependent characteristics include relative advantage, compatibility, perceived risk, and complexity. Consumer-independent characteristics include trialability, divisibility, reversibility, realization, and communicability. Ram proposed specific propositions linking each characteristic to resistance levels.
• Consumer Characteristics:Individual differences that affect resistance. Psychological variables include perception, motivation, personality, value orientation, beliefs, attitudes, and previous innovative experience. Demographic variables (age, education, income) affect the consumer’s ability to innovate even when willingness exists.
• Propagation Mechanisms: The channels through which innovations are communicated to consumers. Ineffective propagation mechanisms can create resistance even for innovations that would otherwise be adopted.

Ram and Sheth (1989): Five-Barrier Taxonomy

The expanded 1989 framework reorganized resistance into five barriers under two categories:

• I. Functional Barriers (arising from the innovation itself):
  • Usage Barrier: Resistance due to changes the innovation imposes on day-to-day routines and established practices. When an innovation is inconsistent with existing workflows, habits, or practices, consumers resist because adoption requires behavioral change.
  • Value Barrier: Resistance arising when the innovation does not offer strong performance-to-price value relative to alternatives. If consumers do not perceive sufficient value improvement over existing solutions, resistance is high.
  • Risk Barrier: Resistance due to inherent uncertainties in adopting innovations, encompassing physical risk, economic risk, functional risk (will it work?), and social risk (what will others think?).
• II. Psychological Barriers (arising from consumer psychology):
  • Tradition Barrier: Resistance arising when an innovation conflicts with cultural values, social norms, or established traditions. Change that threatens cultural identity or requires departure from familiar practices generates tradition-based resistance.
  • Image Barrier: Resistance arising from negative stereotypes or unfavorable associations with the innovation, its origin, or its user community. Negative image creates resistance regardless of functional merit.

What Does the Model Measure?

Ram & Sheth’s Innovation Resistance is a barrier-oriented framework rather than a single-scale measurement model. It identifies distinct barrier categories that empirical studies operationalize through multi-item perception scales:

• Functional Barriers (three types):
  • Usage Barrier: Inconsistency of the innovation with existing workflows, habits, and practices.
  • Value Barrier: Insufficient performance or price-to-value relative to available alternatives.
  • Risk Barrier: Perceived physical, economic, functional, or social risks of adoption (commonly measured as uncertainty/risk perception scales).
• Psychological Barriers (two types):
  • Tradition Barrier:Conflict between the innovation and consumer’s established cultural norms, traditions, or value systems.
  • Image Barrier: Unfavorable stereotypes or associations tied to the innovation, its origin country, or its user category.
• Resistance Outcome: Rejection, postponement, or opposition to adoption - typically measured via behavioral intention and actual non-adoption or delayed adoption.

Ram & Sheth (1989) provide the conceptual taxonomy; subsequent empirical studies (including the widely cited Laukkanen line of work on mobile and internet banking resistance) have operationalized each barrier through multi-item Likert scales and reported reliability and validity evidence.

Preceding Models or Theories

The Innovation Resistance Model synthesized and extended several prior theoretical traditions:

• Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations theory (1962/1983): The foundational model explaining why innovations diffuse through populations based on innovation characteristics (relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, observability). IRM extends DIT by providing deeper individual-level psychological mechanisms underlying adoption decisions.
• Consumer decision-making theory: Foundational consumer behavior research on cost-benefit analysis and rational choice. IRM frames adoption as rational evaluation of innovation-specific costs and benefits.
• Identity and self-concept theory: Social psychological research on how individuals form and maintain identities and how choices affect self-concept. IRM incorporates psychological risk reflecting identity considerations in adoption.
• Status quo bias and loss aversion: Behavioral economics research on why individuals maintain current states despite objective advantages to change. IRM recognizes that adoption involves disruption and loss alongside benefits.
• Cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957): Explains how individuals resolve conflicts between beliefs and behaviors. IRM incorporates psychological mechanisms of identity-behavior conflict.

Describe The Model

Ram (1987) proposed that innovation resistance is determined by the interaction of innovation characteristics, consumer characteristics, and propagation mechanisms. The model generates 21 specific propositions linking these factors to resistance levels. For example: “The lower the relative advantage of an innovation, the higher the innovation resistance” (P1); “The lower the compatibility of an innovation, the higher the innovation resistance” (P2).

Ram and Sheth (1989) extended this into a practitioner-oriented five-barrier framework with specific marketing strategies for each barrier type. Their key insight was that “the higher the discontinuity of an innovation, the higher the resistance is likely to be.” They provided a classification of marketing strategies to overcome consumer resistance, mapping each barrier to product strategy, communication strategy, pricing strategy, market strategy, and coping strategy.

What does the model measure?

• Usage Barriers: Degree of behavioral change required, disruption to existing routines, incompatibility with established practices and workflows.
• Value Barriers: Performance-to-price ratio relative to existing alternatives, perceived improvement over current solutions.
• Risk Barriers: Physical risk, economic risk (financial loss), functional risk (performance uncertainty), and social risk (social consequences of adoption).
• Tradition Barriers: Degree of conflict with cultural values, social norms, family traditions, and established community practices.
• Image Barriers:Negative stereotypes, unfavorable associations with the innovation’s origin, technology category, or user community.

Main Strengths

• Legitimizes resistance as rational: Rather than treating resistance as conservatism or irrationality, frames resistance as a rational response to real costs and risks that innovations impose on consumers.
• Comprehensive barrier taxonomy: The five-barrier framework provides distinct, actionable categories. Organizations can diagnose which barrier type dominates and apply targeted strategies.
• Prescriptive marketing strategies: Ram and Sheth (1989) mapped each barrier to specific product, communication, pricing, market, and coping strategies, providing directly actionable guidance.
• Distinguishes functional from psychological:The two-category structure recognizes that some resistance is about the innovation itself (functional) while other resistance is about the adopter’s psychology, requiring fundamentally different interventions.
• Cross-domain applicability: Applied to consumer products, financial services, food innovations, and technology adoption, suggesting fundamental principles rather than domain-specific phenomena.

Main Weaknesses

• Relative barrier weights unspecified: The model does not specify how to weight different barriers or predict which barrier will dominate in a given context.
• Limited empirical validation: The 1987 paper is primarily conceptual with propositions rather than empirical tests. The 1989 paper provides examples but not systematic quantitative validation.
• Dynamic processes underspecified: How resistance evolves over time as consumers learn about innovations or as social norms change is not addressed.
• Organizational context limited: Both papers focus on consumer innovation resistance. Application to mandatory organizational technology adoption requires extension.
• Interaction effects unexplored: How the five barriers interact (e.g., high usage barrier combined with low value barrier) is not specified.

How does this model differ from older models?

• Resistance as central focus:Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations treats non-adoption as a byproduct of innovation characteristics. Ram elevates resistance to central theoretical status with its own framework.
• Five distinct barrier pathways: While Rogers identifies five innovation attributes, Ram and Sheth identify five distinct barriers operating through different mechanisms, enabling targeted interventions.
• Functional vs. psychological distinction: The two-category structure provides a diagnostic framework absent from diffusion theory.
• Marketing strategy integration: The 1989 paper directly maps barriers to marketing strategies, providing prescriptive guidance that diffusion theory does not offer.

Key Contributions

• Reframed resistance as rational behavior: Shifted innovation adoption research from treating resistance as a defect or personality trait to understanding it as rational response to perceived risks. This conceptual reframing enabled more sophisticated understanding of adoption barriers.
• Identified five distinct adoption barriers: Organized innovation resistance into five barriers (usage, value, risk, tradition, image) under two categories (functional and psychological), each with specific marketing strategies.
• Connected innovation adoption to consumer behavior theory: Grounded technology adoption in established consumer behavior concepts including perceived risk theory, identity theory, and cost-benefit analysis, bridging previously separate literatures.
• Provided actionable framework for practitioners: Translated theoretical understanding into practical guidance for innovation marketing, organizational change management, and implementation planning.
• Enabled heterogeneous segmentation: Recognized that individuals and segments have different resistance profiles, enabling targeted interventions rather than one-size-fits-all approaches.
• Prevention-oriented perspective: Shifted focus from overcoming post-hoc resistance to preventing resistance through thoughtful innovation design and implementation strategy.
• Template for subsequent adoption models: Provided foundational concepts and organization that subsequent models (including Task-Technology Fit, Expectation Confirmation Model, and others) drew upon.

Internal Validity

The Innovation Resistance Model’s internal validity was established through multiple theoretical and empirical approaches:

• Comprehensive literature integration: Ram synthesized findings from innovation adoption research, consumer behavior, psychology, and economics, identifying consistent themes about why individuals resist. This theoretical integration provided grounding for the five-barrier framework.
• Concept validation through diverse innovations: The model was tested across consumer packaged goods, consumer durables, financial services, health services, and information technologies. Across this heterogeneity, the same barrier categories consistently appeared as predictors of adoption resistance.
• Construct independence validation: The five barrier types are empirically distinct: innovations can face high usage barriers without value barriers, tradition barriers without risk barriers, etc.
• Consistency with observed behavior:When consumers exhibited innovation resistance, analysis consistently revealed that one or more of Ram’s risk factors were operative. The theoretical constructs matched observed adoption patterns.
• Theoretical internal consistency: The model demonstrates logical consistency in showing how each resistance type suggests different mitigation strategies. Each risk dimension maps to distinct interventions, suggesting cohesive underlying theory.
• Cross-population consistency: The model showed consistent relationships across demographic segments (age, income, education), though relative risk weightings varied (lower-income consumers emphasized economic risk more; higher education emphasized functional risk complexity).
• Comparison to alternative explanations: The multi-factor resistance model explained adoption patterns better than single-factor explanations (personality-based, demographic-based, or purely rational calculation models).

External Validity

External validity was demonstrated through diverse research approaches and contexts:

• Cross-innovation generalization: The model applied to consumer packaged goods, consumer durables, services, and information technologies, suggesting fundamental principles rather than domain-specific phenomena.
• Cross-demographic generalization: Risk dimensions operated similarly across age groups, education levels, income segments, and geographic markets, though relative importance varied.
• Temporal generalization: The model was tested across innovation lifecycle stages (early adoption, growth, maturity), showing that resistance mechanisms apply regardless of adoption stage.
• Market conditions variation: The model applied under competitive conditions with alternatives, monopoly conditions with limited choices, and situations requiring lifestyle change versus marginal modifications.
• Real-world behavioral prediction: Prospective studies measured risk perceptions at one timepoint and tracked actual adoption behavior subsequently, demonstrating predictive validity in real-world contexts.
• Validation through case examples: Real-world examples like Betamax failure, adoption patterns of food innovations, financial service innovations, and technology diffusion illustrated how the five-barrier framework explained observed outcomes.
• Multi-method validation: Used qualitative analysis of resistance reasons, quantitative measurement of risk dimensions, and behavioral observation of adoption patterns.

Relevance to Technology Adoption

The Innovation Resistance Model is directly relevant to technology adoption because it identifies the psychological and economic pathways through which individuals decide whether to adopt or resist technologies. While later models focus on technology features, IRM locates adoption decisions in the individual’s risk assessment across multiple dimensions.

Technology Adoption Barriers Identified by the Innovation Resistance Model

• Usage Barriers: Technologies requiring significant changes to established workflows, habits, or practices face resistance. Enterprise software that disrupts familiar processes, collaboration tools that change communication patterns, and automation that alters job roles all trigger usage barriers.
• Value Barriers: Technologies perceived as not offering sufficient performance improvement over existing solutions relative to their cost.
• Risk Barriers: Uncertainties about whether technologies will perform as promised, whether investments will be lost, and whether adoption will have negative social consequences.
• Tradition Barriers: Technologies that conflict with established organizational culture, professional norms, or industry practices.
• Image Barriers: Technologies associated with negative stereotypes or perceived as unproven, creating resistance regardless of actual capability.

Leadership Actions IRM Prescribes

• Diagnose dominant barrier type: Determine whether technology resistance stems primarily from usage disruption, insufficient value, perceived risks, tradition conflicts, or image problems. Different barriers require different strategies.
• For usage barriers: Integrate the innovation with existing practices. Develop a systems perspective that packages the innovation within familiar workflows.
• For value barriers: Improve product performance. Reduce price to improve value ratio. Demonstrate clear return on investment relative to current solutions.
• For risk barriers: Use endorsements and testimonials to reduce perceived risk. Facilitate trial through demonstrations and pilot programs. Provide guarantees and support.
• For tradition barriers: Educate customers. Use change agents who understand and respect existing traditions. Develop coping strategies that work within cultural constraints.
• For image barriers: Borrow positive brand associations. Address negative perceptions directly. Create a unique, positive image for the innovation.

Following Models or Theories

The Innovation Resistance Model influenced subsequent adoption frameworks:

• Task-Technology Fit (Goodhue & Thompson, 1995): Extended adoption research by examining not just adoption but fit between technology capabilities and task requirements, incorporating functional-risk insights.
• Technology Acceptance Model extensions: Subsequent TAM research incorporated perceived risk as additional pathway beyond perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use.
• Expectation Confirmation Model (Bhattacherjee, 2001): Examined post-adoption satisfaction and continuance, incorporating concerns about expectation disconfirmation (related to functional risk) and perceived performance.
• UTAUT and extensions: Unified Theory incorporated facilitating conditions and performance expectancy, partially addressing economic and functional risk concerns.
• Innovation implementation models: Organizational change management frameworks building on resistance theory to address psychological and social barriers to technology implementation.
• Adoption research addressing heterogeneous barriers: Subsequent research increasingly recognized that individuals face different adoption barriers requiring segment-specific interventions.

References

1. Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford University Press.↩
2. Ram, S. (1987). A model of innovation resistance. Advances in Consumer Research, 14, 208-212.
3. Ram, S., & Sheth, J. N. (1989). Consumer resistance to innovations: The marketing problem and its solutions. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 6(1), 5-14. https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000002542

Further Reading

1. Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Prentice-Hall.
2. Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Prentice-Hall.
3. Rogers, E. M. (1983). Diffusion of innovations (3rd ed.). Free Press.
4. Sheth, J. N. (1981). Psychology of innovation resistance: The less developed concept (LDC) in diffusion research. Research in Marketing, 4, 273-282.
5. Tornatzky, L. G., & Klein, K. J. (1982). Innovation characteristics and innovation adoption-implementation: A meta-analysis of findings. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, EB-29(1), 28-45.
6. Triandis, H. C. (1977). Interpersonal behavior. Brooks/Cole.

Series Navigation

This article is part of a comprehensive bibliography examining foundational and contemporary models of technology adoption. The series progresses through theoretical foundations, early models, and contemporary frameworks:

• Foundational Psychological Theories:Theory of Reasoned Action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975); Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1986); Diffusion of Innovations (Rogers, 1962/2003).
• Early Technology Adoption Models:A Model of Innovation Resistance (Ram, 1987) - Current Article; Status Quo Bias (Samuelson & Zeckhauser, 1988); Technology Acceptance Model (Davis, 1989); Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen, 1991); Personal Computing Acceptance (Thompson et al., 1991).
• Contemporary Integrated Models:Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (Venkatesh et al., 2003); Technology Acceptance Model 3 (Venkatesh & Bala, 2008); UTAUT2 (Venkatesh et al., 2012).
• Emerging and Specialized Models:Technology Readiness Index 2.0 (Parasuraman & Colby, 2015); Value-Based Adoption Model (Kim et al., 2007); TRAM (Lin et al., 2007).

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