Innovation Adoption: Adopting change management techniques to positively impact new product diffusion

Abstract

Several decades of innovation diffusion research has utilized varying lenses – from forecasting innovation diffusion to controllable variables such as cost, quality, and marketing. Yet with so much research into the affecting factors, innovation adoption continues to fail at an alarmingly high rate. One factor that could be influencing this failure rate is adopting an innovation requires a behavior change on the part of the consumer and the resistance to change may lead to the resistance to adopt an innovation. In this thesis, the effectiveness of applying change management techniques to promote innovation diffusion is investigated. It is shown that change management techniques used proactively in marketing can positively influence the overall diffusion of a working innovation. This unique research utilizes organizational change management techniques to promote diffusion and provides a pathway for doing so when dealing with diffusion in the market. Seven propositions were derived from combing consumer personality types and organizational change management. The propositions were challenged against successful and failed innovation adoption case studies for verification. Findings show that each of the seven propositions can positively influence innovation diffusion and as such, seven steps for innovation change management were identified as a pathway for managerial use.