Resistance to innovation in low-income populations: The case of university students' resistance to using digital productivity applications

Abstract

Innovation resistance research remains in its early stages. Efforts to define and comprehend consumer resistance to innovation necessitate in-depth studies that consider the contextual factors of resistance to innovation. To address this challenge, this research explored consumer resistance to innovation in a low-income population, namely, university students on financial support. The innovation under this study is the productivity applications provided for free by the University of Hail, Saudi Arabia, to all students. This study explores variables such as value barrier, risk barrier, tradition barrier, and image barrier and how they impact consumer resistance to innovation in a low-income population. We extend the theory by investigating the moderating roles of consumer characteristics (motivation, self-efficacy, emotion, and attitude toward existing products). The current study is based on an online survey of low-income students at a Saudi Arabian University; 258 cases were gathered. We found that all the direct effects of the variables (i.e., Value Barrier, Risk Barrier, Tradition Barrier, and Image Barrier) were positively related to consumer resistance to innovation. Importantly, consumer characteristics significantly moderate this relationship, as the relationship is stronger when the measurements for consumer characteristics are high.