Understanding resistance to innovation

Media out­lets often report that French people are oppo­sed to inno­va­tion. Recent examples include figures sho­wing that only a small num­ber of people are willing to get vac­ci­na­ted against Covid-19 or the contro­ver­sy around 5G net­works. But these atti­tudes are hard­ly sur­pri­sing when we look at research into resis­tance to innovation.

There are many examples of pro­duct or ser­vice inno­va­tions that set off very strong resis­tance among poten­tial users. One inter­es­ting illus­tra­tion is the Lin­ky smart elec­tri­ci­ty meters that are being rol­led out in France since last year. It’s not just hou­se­holds that are wary of them, but also – and more sur­pri­sin­gly – local coun­cils, which usual­ly act as inter­me­dia­ries to faci­li­tate the roll-out of inno­va­tions. Groups have for­med to fight against and prevent these new meters from being imple­men­ted across the coun­try. Mem­bers of this move­ment orga­nise pro­tests, share tips on how to reject the ins­tal­la­tion of a new meter, or res­trict access to technicians.

These new-gene­ra­tion meters show hour-by-hour consump­tion, allow remote ope­ra­tions, and are pro­vi­ded for free. So, what explains this (some­times violent) resis­tance, when the Lin­ky meters per­form bet­ter in eve­ry way ? Our research aims to unders­tand the sources of resis­tance and how it’s expres­sed through local coun­cils – more than 1,000 have issued decrees against the new smart meters ¹.

A per­son may not have adop­ted a pro­duct sim­ply because they were una­ware of its exis­tence or characteristics.

Resis­tance goes beyond refu­sing to embrace inno­va­tion. A per­son may not adopt a pro­duct sim­ply because they don’t know it exists or what its fea­tures are. As such, some­times sim­ply trying out a new pro­duct can lead to users adop­ting it.

The notion of “resis­tance to inno­va­tion” implies a conscious deci­sion. Here, the per­son is making the choice not to adopt a new pro­duct or ser­vice. This resis­tance is gra­dual and can mani­fest itself in a wait-and-see atti­tude where the per­son holds out for bet­ter terms and condi­tions. This is the case when the consu­mer finds an inno­va­tion inter­es­ting but would rather wait for it to become wides­pread and adop­ted by many before using it themselves.

In contrast, resis­tance can be very violent when the goal is to make an inno­va­tion flop. This phe­no­me­non has a varie­ty of ori­gins, but there is a cer­tain cor­re­la­tion bet­ween the source and the inten­si­ty of the resis­tance. Resis­tance can come from iner­tia, for ins­tance, the consu­mer fee­ling com­for­table with their habits, disin­te­res­ted in adop­ting new pro­ducts or methods. Worse still, the consu­mer might see an inno­va­tion as over­ly com­plex in some way, or sim­ply have a nega­tive image of it.

Ano­ther pos­sible source of resis­tance can be tra­ced to the dis­rup­tion of norms or tra­di­tions through inno­va­tion, e.g. gene­ti­cal­ly-modi­fied pro­duce, which raises ques­tions about whe­ther mani­pu­la­ting DNA is a social­ly accep­table prac­tice. Last­ly, the consu­mer may per­ceive cer­tain risks in adop­ting the inno­va­tion. There are mul­tiple kinds of risks – risk to phy­si­cal safe­ty, eco­no­mic risk (“If I spend the money on this pro­duct, will it be worth it ? What are the poten­tial hid­den costs?”), func­tio­nal risk (“Will the pro­duct real­ly per­form like it’s meant to?”) and social risk (“Will the people I hold dear see this inno­va­tion as a posi­tive thing?”).

As noted by Klei­j­nen et al. (2009), inno­va­tion that dis­rupts tra­di­tions and norms, when like­ly to involve phy­si­cal risk for consu­mers, is the most like­ly to encoun­ter very strong, cult-like resis­tance ².

To find the sources of resis­tance to the Lin­ky meters, we ana­ly­sed around 500 local coun­cil reports and decrees enac­ted across France to delay or prevent them from being rol­led out. Our results sho­wed that, in addi­tion to belie­ving that meters didn’t improve things in any way, agents of resis­tance saw them as a source of a wide range of risks.

Our clus­ter ana­ly­sis shows five kinds of coun­cils who each had very dif­ferent rea­sons for rejec­ting, or at least delaying, the roll-out in their muni­ci­pa­li­ty. Their argu­ments rela­ted to the tech­ni­cal fea­tures (lifes­pan, elec­tro­ma­gne­tic waves) but also to the risks connec­ted to a dis­pu­ted roll-out. This debate gave rise to forms of resis­tance that ran­ged from a mora­to­rium to a full ban. Some coun­cils focu­sed on envi­ron­men­tal argu­ments rela­ting to repla­cing mil­lions of meters with ones for which the lifes­pan is poten­tial­ly three times shor­ter. Some high­ligh­ted the per­cei­ved risks due to fire, elec­tro­ma­gne­tic waves or data breach. Others empha­si­sed risks of dis­tur­bance because some hou­se­holds would not accept the roll-out. Others argued that repla­cing the meters should be the remit of coun­cils them­selves ; or they brought up all these argu­ments and insis­ted that the new meters pro­vide no bene­fit to the end user.

The most pro­noun­ced forms of resis­tance came from coun­cils that invo­ked owner­ship of the meters, and the­re­by ban­ned the roll-out in their ter­ri­to­ry by muni­ci­pal decree. This is just one example of how research into any inno­va­tion must include an in-depth ana­ly­sis of consu­mer per­cep­tion and beha­viour. Other­wise, there’s a risk of encoun­te­ring a very high level of resis­tance, no mat­ter the level of tech­no­lo­gi­cal pro­wess pre­sen­ted by their innovation.