What about Passive Innovation Resistance? Investigating Adoption‐Related Behavior from a Resistance Perspective

Adoption literature has been dominated by a novelty‐seeking paradigm, whereas resistance to innovation has received considerably less attention as a means to explain and predict adoption‐related behavior. The lack of a good metric to assess consumers' predisposition to resist innovations has prevented the establishment of a common ground for empirical research and thus hampered progress to date. This paper develops and empirically validates a scale to measure individual differences in consumers' predisposition to resist innovations (hereafter, passive innovation resistance, or PIR). The proposed instrument entails a personality‐specific and situation‐specific measure that assesses individual differences in consumers' predisposition to resist innovations, emerging from their inclination to resist changes and exhibit status quo satisfaction. The scale represents a measure of the generic tendency to resist innovations and thus captures the notion of a general disposition to act in a consistent way in various situations. The results of multiple studies show that the PIR scale has good psychometric properties, and its relationships with other constructs conform to theoretical expectations. Furthermore, the PIR scale explains and predicts adoption‐related behaviors beyond the variance accounted for by traditionally investigated constructs such as innate innovativeness, big‐five personality dimensions, or demographic variables. These results clearly reveal the importance of PIR for determining adoption‐related behavior but contest a conceptualization of constructs that tap only novelty seeking at a high level as the direct antecedent of adoption. Research that attempts to explain and predict adoption‐related behavior can benefit from taking a resistance perspective as well.     

How to Overcome Pro‐Change Bias: Incorporating Passive and Active Innovation Resistance in Innovation Decision Models

Adoption literature is largely subject to a pro‐change bias; researchers mainly assume that consumers are open to change and thus interested in evaluating new products. However, consumers often reject innovations without considering their potential, such that the adoption process ends before it really has begun. The present study instead argues that innovation resistance, prior to product evaluation, is a regular consumer response that must be recognized and managed to facilitate new product adoption. The authors suggest differentiating passive from active innovation resistance. While passive innovation resistance results from a consumer's generic predisposition to resist innovations prior to new product evaluation, active innovation resistance is an attitudinal outcome that follows an unfavorable new product evaluation. This study also extends extant innovation decision models by describing how passive and active innovation resistance emerge and how they affect decision‐making in later stages of the process.     

Hereditary neuropathy

A 58-year-old male presented with a history of slowly progressive bilateral hand weakness manifested by decreased grip strength and pinch strength associated with some pain in the first metacarpal-carpal joints with atrophy of the muscles of the web space. An evaluation based on history, physical exam, and judicious diagnostic testing yielded a finding of motor and sensory peripheral polyneuropathy and a working diagnosis of hereditary nerve pressure palsy syndrome (HNPP) or hereditary neuropathy with liability to pressure palsies. The clinical findings and diagnostic tests for sensory and motor peripheral neuropathy are discussed. The case details over time, hereditary features, and the natural history of this disorder lead to a favorable clinical and insurance medicine prognosis.     

The role of task-related antecedents for the development of turnover intentions in temporary project teams

Abstract

High turnover can cause serious problems in organizations. Yet, previous research confirmed that HRM practices are useful to influence the development of turnover intentions. Existing studies have revealed a variety of factors that drive individuals to leave permanent organizations (POs) but almost no research has considered turnover in temporary organizations (TOs). Yet, TOs, such as project teams, have become increasingly prevalent and exhibit several characteristics that are distinct from POs. Hence, the antecedents of turnover intentions in TOs may also differ from those in POs. However, empirical evidence for this proposition is still lacking. In order to address this research gap, this study examines task-related antecedents of turnover intentions in temporary organizations (TITO) using a sample of 253 employees working in project teams. The results show that inter-role conflict is the most influential antecedent of TITO. Unlike suggested by extant literature, members of TOs seem to be willing to accept down-cuts in job autonomy and meaningfulness of their work, without developing turnover intentions while working for TOs. Furthermore, the results confirmed a direct relationship between TITO and turnover intentions from the permanent organization (TIPO). Members of TOs that want to, but cannot leave their project team seem to develop TIPO.