A study on the distinction between consumer innovation resistance and adoption Focusing on the green innovation of meat substitutes

Abstract

The main aim of this study was to provide more clarity on the difference between consumer innovation resistance and consumer innovation adoption by answering the research question: ‘To what extent are consumer innovation resistance and consumer innovation adoption - to meat substitutes - qualitatively different and thus not opposites of each other?’ The motivation for investigating this was the lack of consensus and clarity on the actual meaning of both resistance and adoption and the perception of them being opposites or not. After physically collecting data by asking people to fill in a survey, a sample of 265 respondents was obtained. The data has been analysed by performing several analyses using SPSS. The results show that consumer innovation resistance comprises two dimensions: cognitive emotional and behavioural. Consumer innovation adoption consists of one dimension. Moreover, consumer innovation resistance and consumer innovation adoption negatively correlate with each other, which suggests them being opposites. The relationships between consumer innovation resistance or consumer innovation adoption with the three antecedents ‘perceived unnaturalness’, ‘perceived environmental friendliness’, and ‘animal welfare’ supports this. The antecedent ‘perceived healthiness’ however supports the belief of consumer innovation resistance and consumer innovation adoption being qualitatively different, which is enough for confirming their qualitative difference. There were several limitations regarding the generalisability of the results and the formulation of the items, that could have influenced the final outcomes. Therefore, future research is suggested to broaden up their scope and collect data in more different cities, to look at additional public spaces that collectively are more representative for the population as a whole, to formulate the items differently, to look for other reasons why one would neither resist nor adopt meat substitutes simultaneously, and to find different reasons for differences among consumers on the distinct resistance dimensions. Finally, this thesis theoretically contributes to understanding the conceptualisations of resistance and adoption and the differences between both. Furthermore, it gives marketing managers and policy-makers handles for where to focus on whilst communicating and implementing change and targeting and positioning meat substitutes. More specifically, marketing managers and policy-makers should think of ways to make meat substitutes more attractive for males, students, less innovative, and relatively older consumers to encourage green purchase behaviour towards meat substitutes. Additionally, perceived environmental friendliness and perceived healthiness were the most important motivational reasons for adopting meat substitutes. Finally, this study contributes to R&D departments by providing a two-dimensional scale - comprising the cognitive emotional and the behavioural dimension - for consumer innovation resistance and a one-dimensional scale for consumer innovation adoption.