International Marketing Review

A Cross-national Examination of Innovation Resistance

Patriya Tansuhaj James W. Gentry Joby John L. Lee Manzer Bong Jin Cho
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Patriya Tansuhaj James W. Gentry Joby John L. Lee Manzer Bong Jin Cho, (1991),"A Cross-national
Examination of Innovation Resistance", International Marketing Review, Vol. 8 Iss 3 pp.
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 A Cross-national Examination Innovation
Resistance
of Innovation Resistance
Patriya Tansuhaj
Washington State University, USA
7
James W. Gentry
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA Received March 1990
Revised June 1990
Joby John September 1990
Bentley College, USA
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L. Lee Manzer
Oklahoma State University, USA
Bong Jin Cho
Keimyung University, Korea

Managing the acceptance of new products domestically can be frustrating, but

the complexity increases enormously when one takes a global horizon. When
the marketer attempts to introduce a product overseas, the risk of consumer
resistance to innovation may be high. Attempts to overcome that resistance
will be much more effective if one understands the specific cause(s) of the
resistance. Innovativeness differences across cultures have been discussed
(Green and Langeard, 1975; Douglas, 1976; Hoover et al., 1978; Rogers 1983);
however, little empirical evidence has been reported explaining why the
differences exist.
Sheth (1981), Sheth and Ram (1987) and Ram (1987, 1989) discussed innovation
resistance systematically, noting that resistance varies across cultures, and that
one barrier to the adoption of innovations is tradition, or resistance to change.
The knowledge of whether cultural variables influence consumers' innovativeness
is useful in the formulation of international marketing strategies. If the
relationships between variation in cultural variables and innovation resistance
are significant, future research could test the effectiveness of various risk
reduction strategies in cultures where consumers perceive greater or less risk
and are less or more willing to try new products. Ram (1989) argued that
marketers have two strategies (communication and product modification) available
to them in the early stages of product introduction, and found that the relative
success of the strategies depended upon the nature of innovation resistance.
For example, print advertising and change agents were found to be effective
if the product was associated with high levels of social risk or was associated
with strong habits, while product modification was more effective if the resistance
was due to economic or performance risk.
International Marketing Review,
The authors gratefully acknowledge valuable and constructive comments of the anonymous Vol. 8 No. 3, 1991, pp. 7-20. ©
reviewers on earlier versions of this article. MCB University Press 0265-1335
 International In this study, we investigate the role of cultural values in explaining differences
Marketing in the willingness to try new products in order to help broaden the understanding
Review of innovation resistance across cultures. Recognising that any number of cultural
8,3 variables could have been selected, three variables were chosen that seem to
offer a more direct explanation of the differences in innovativeness across
cultures. This study investigates the influence of fatalism, traditionalism, and
religiosity on consumers' perceptions of risk and their innovativeness or
8 willingness to try new products. We also examine innovation resistance across
a broader range of products than has been studied previously. Furthermore,
the study involved respondents in five countries (the United States, South Korea,
Thailand, India, and Senegal) that differ widely in both economic development
and culture.
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Innovation Resistance Dependent Variables

Resistance to Innovation
An early study by Rogers (1957) found individuals' rigidity, change orientation,
innovative proneness, and adoption self-ratings to be significantly related to their
adoption of new products. Resistance to innovation has traditionally been
measured indirectly by looking at individuals' innovativeness. Since the notion
of "being resistant to trying new products" is viewed as being more obtuse
than "being (un)willing to try a new product", we used the approach taken
by Hirschman (1983a). Responses concerning a variety of product classes were
recorded using a four-point scale anchored by "very willing" and "not very
willing". Also, in order to obtain a better view of the diffusion process across
cultures, respondents were asked the number of new products which they had
adopted in the previous year and the likelihood of their giving advice to and
receiving it from friends. The use of the phrase "new products" is so general
that respondents in all countries could identify exemplars in the product class
without requiring that the products or brands be the same across cultures.
However, we do acknowledge that the groups being studied no doubt have had
differential experience (or even different need-satisfaction meanings) with the
product classes included in the study.

Perceived Risk
Sheth and Ram (1987) list risk as a major barrier to innovation, as risk arises
because "all innovations, to some extent, represent uncertainty and pose
potential side-effects that cannot be anticipated completely" (p. 78). Sheth (1981)
noted perceived risk as being one of the two psychological constructs (the other
being habit) which seem most useful in understanding the psychology of
innovation resistance. Therefore resistance to innovation increases as the risk
perceived to be associated with the new product increases. However, as noted
by other researchers (McAlister and Pessemier, 1982; Venkatesan 1973), there
are instances where individuals do not avoid risk but rather seek to increase
risk as they try to approach their optimum level of stimulation (Raju, 1980;
Zuckerman, 1979). Thus the relationship between innovation resistance and
 perceived risk is likely to be somewhat complex, and certainly not a Innovation
straightforward one-to-one relationship. Resistance
A perceived risk measure similar to that used by Hoover et al. (1978) was
adopted for this study. This measure asked how much risk (a great deal, some,
little, no risk) is associated with the use of a product. The risk questions were
asked for the same variety of products covered by the "willingness-to-try-new-
products" questions.
9
Cultural Independent Variables: Fate, Religious Commitment and
Tradition
New products are adopted in a society as one of several possible paths of the
modernisation process but at different rates across societies. Resistance to,
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or receptiveness of, societal change may be dependent on whether values related

to fatalism, religious commitment, and traditionalism are dominant cultural
characteristics of that society. Here we review these constructs as they appear
in the literature and discuss their relationship to innovation resistance.

Fatalism
Fatalism or fate-orientation is tied conceptually to one's relationship with nature.
It may be defined as the belief that all events are predetermined by fate and,
therefore, unalterable by humans (Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck, 1961). Wright
et al. (1978) suggested that cross-cultural differences in probabilistic thinking
(i.e. British students being better calibrated probability assessors than Asian
students) may be explained by fatalism: Asian students were found to have a
much lower level of rational understanding of uncertain environments.
Consequently, it might be that individuals who are fatalistic are likely to avoid
uncertain situations.
Conceptually, fatalism has been studied as one dimension within the locus
of control construct (Schneider and Parsons, 1970). Individuals in cultures that
have a fatalistic orientation exhibit external locus of control. McGinnies et al.
(1974) suggested that individuals raised in a culture that values politeness,
obedience, and conformity might exhibit more external than internal locus of
control. Thus oriental cultures are more likely to have an external locus of control
than western cultures. For example, Hsu (1961) stated that the Chinese believe
in luck, chance, and fate to a greater extent than Americans, and Tse et al.
(1988) found Chinese executives less willing to adopt strategies to control the
decision environment.
There have been a few studies that related fatalism to innovativeness and
perceived risk. Rogers (1983) found earlier adopters to be less fatalistic than
later adopters. Of the studies he reviewed which involved fatalism, 82 per cent
supported this generalisation. Additionally, 73 per cent of the studies concluded
that the ability to cope with uncertainty is positively related to the likelihood
of new product adoption. Risk was reported as a less important determinant
of purchase behaviour in Mexico than in the United States because Mexicans
tend to be more fatalistic (Green and Langeard, 1975). There is some evidence
 International in the literature that fatalism influences consumers' perception of risk and how
Marketing they would handle risk, which in turn affects their willingness to adopt new
Review products. Given the findings from the aforementioned studies, the first hypothesis
8,3 may be stated as:
H1. Consumers who are more fatalistic:
a: are less willing to try new products, but
10 b: associate less perceived risk with trying new products.
Hypothesis la reflects that those who are fatalistic are less likely to want to
improve (alter) their life style by trying new products. Hypothesis lb reflects
that those who are fatalistic are less likely to perceive that risks are due to
new products, since they believe that forces which are under less control will
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have more influence on their lives.

While many studies have used Rotter's (1966) Locus of Control instrument
to measure the fatalism construct (Aldrich et al., 1975; Surlin, 1976), some
researchers (Aldrich et al., 1975; Farris and Glenn, 1976) have developed their
own measures. For this research, a four-item fatalism scale developed by Farris
and Glenn (1976) and a six-item Locus of Control measure that Lumpkin (1985),
reduced from Rotter's (1966) 29-item scale, are used.

Religious Commitment
Cornwall and Albrecht (1986) distinguished three dimensions of religiosity:
religious belief (knowing or cognition), religious commitment (feeling or affect),
and religious behaviour. The term religiosity or religious commitment is often
used loosely, focusing on the behavioural aspect at the expense of understanding
the affective dimension. This study emphasises the affective component.
Religious beliefs were found in recent studies (e.g. Hirschman, 1981; 1982;
1983a; 1983b) to play an important role in the formation of the consumer's values,
attitudes, and behaviour. Empirical evidence indicated that religious affiliation
may be a causal element underlying consumption-related phenomena, such as
consumers' information-processing abilities, reasons for engaging in leisure
activities, and novelty-seeking and information-transfer behaviours (Hirschman,
1982). John et al. (1986) found a (weak) relationship between religiosity and
willingness to try new products and perceived risk. In a study on geographic
subcultures in the US, Gentry et al. (1987) report that residents in areas with
higher levels of religiosity perceive higher levels of risk with new products.
Accordingly, we state our second hypothesis as follows:
H2. Consumers' religious commitment is:
a: inversely related to willingness to try new products, and
b: directly related to the amount of perceived risk associated with new
products.
The scale for the religiosity construct was adapted from Putney and Middleton
(1961). In addition, we added one item which deals with the role that religion
had in the upbringing.
 Traditionalism Innovation
Traditionalism is defined here as "the degree of one's adherence to his or her Resistance
cultural values, tradition, and norms". Traditionalism is linked conceptually with
Kluckhohn and Strodtbeck's (1961) cultural theme of Time Orientation. Past-
oriented societies, such as those found in much of South-east Asia, place great
value on tradition and, thus, are less likely to adopt changes. On the other
hand, societies like the US have a strong future orientation. Traditionalists are
expected to be less willing to try new products and to perceive greater risk 11
with new products.
H3. Traditionalism is:
a: inversely related to consumers' willingness to try new products, and
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b: directly related to the amount of perceived risk associated with new

products.
These hypotheses reflect the logic presented in Ram (1987), Sheth (1981), and
Sheth and Ram (1987), who stress the role that habit and tradition play in
innovation resistance and in the perception of risk.
There is a lack of consensus about the operationalisation of traditionalism
in marketing. In the Douglas and Urban (1977) study, "traditionalism" measured
the specific roles of women at home and in society. Tan and McCullough (1985)
studied traditionalism under the label of "ethnic attitudes". They measured
Singaporean consumers' attitudes towards the Confucian tradition and norms,
using an AIO inventory. These researchers claim to have developed a universal
measure that is applicable to all cultures; it focuses on how much people adhere
to and preserve their culture. Based on their approach, a five-item scale was
created to determine respondents' adherence to their culture in terms of: (1)
their conforming with traditional values; (2) culture being worth preserving;
(3) young people adopting new values; (4) wanting loved ones to behave
consistently with tradition; and (5) people mixing other cultural values with
their own.

Country Selection
India, Thailand, Senegal, the United States, and South Korea were selected
for the study in order to represent varying degrees of societal and economic
development. Based on the information in the 1984 World Development Report
and the 1983 World Handbook of Political and Social Indicator, the United States
was rated the most developed (with a better rank on Gross National Product
(GNP) per capita, literacy rate, etc.) with South Korea second, Thailand third,
India fourth, and Senegal the least developed. Furthermore, the dominant
religion underlying the culture of each country also differs: Hinduism for India
(83 per cent), Hinayana Buddhism for Thailand (90 per cent), Islam for Senegal
(80 per cent), and Christianity for the US (92 per cent). In South Korea,
Confucianism has a strong influence on the values of the people; however, 49
per cent were officially classified as Christian and 47 per cent as Mahayana
Buddhists.
 International Method
Marketing Samples
Review Data were collected from university students from a prominent university in
8,3 a large urban area in each foreign country: New Delhi (India), Dakar (Senegal),
Daegu and Pusan (South Korea), and Bangkok (Thailand). In the US the data
were collected in four separate regions (Oklahoma; Washington; Massachusetts;
and Wisconsin). The urban/rural dichotomy is far greater in less developed
12 countries than in the US. Use of students limits the generalisability of the study,
but homogeneity of the samples allows for a stricter testing of the relationships
among the constructs. Jones (1982) found strong differences in traditional values
across community sizes; the use of urban samples in the four countries controlled
for this source of variation. Furthermore, the cultural values studied here can
be expected to affect older adults more than younger adults. If cross-cultural
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variations in values and in the perceptions of innovation resistance exist among

the youth, it is expected that even stronger variations exist among their elders.

Country
Sample size Korea US Thailand India Senegal
Variable 481 488 313 234 106
% % % % %

Sex
Males 58 45 40 24 75
Females 42 55 60 76 25
Religion
None 41 17 7 5 —
Catholic 11 38 — — 15
Protestant 18 38 — 17 —
Buddhist 25 — 93 — —
Hindu — — — 71 —
Muslim — — — 1 85
Age
<19 1 2 9 38 6
19-20 35 34 38 42 5
21-22 45 36 41 17 12
23-25 13 17 8 2 45
over 25 1 10 4 1 31
Father's education level
No formal education 2 — 6 — 57
Grade school 18 2 38 1 24
High school 22 25 27 9 15
College (there) 41 67 17 76 1
College (abroad) 16 4 6 11 4
Mother's education level
No formal education 5 1 10 6 83
Grade school 35 2 51 8 7
High school 33 41 22 24 10
College (there) 22 54 14 59 —
Table I. College (abroad) 5 2 2 3 —
Sample Profiles
 The use of college students as respondents tends to make the total sample Innovation
more homogeneous in terms of education and age. Table I summarises the Resistance
profiles of the respondents from each country.
Survey Instrument
The original English questionnaire was used in India and in the United States.
A translation was made for the Thai sample (in Thai), for the Senegalese sample
(in French), and for the Korean sample (in Korean). Each translated questionnaire 13
was back-translated for consistency in meaning by a minimum of two persons
with high proficiency in each language. In addition, the research team is
represented by nationals included in the study (except for Senegal).
To measure the willingness to try new products and risk measures, some
of the 15 consumption areas included in the Hirschman (1983a) study were used;
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dance styles, places to shop, fashion clothes, books, magazines, food,

entertainment places and hair-styles. In order to investigate the reactions to
technical products, cameras, watches, motor cycles, and computers were added.

Results
The analysis was carried out in four stages: (1) an investigation of the measures
themselves; (2) an investigation of whether the countries studied differed in
terms of the cultural variables (fatalism, religious commitment, and
traditionalism); (3) an investigation of cross-national variations in innovation
resistance; and (4) an investigation of the canonical relationships between the
cultural values and innovation resistance.

Investigation of the Measures

Factor analysis was used to group the 12 products according to the respondent's
willingness to try them and to the amount of perceived risk associated with
them. The respondents across the five countries grouped products similarly
in terms of their willingness to try them and in terms of the risk associated
with them. The most consistent grouping of products is Technical Products —
cameras, watches, motor cycles, and computers (in Senegal, motor cycles were
grouped with foods and entertainment places). Other relatively consistent
groupings were Media Products — books and magazines, Entertainments —
foods and entertainment places, and Fashion Products — fashion clothing, places
to shop, hair-styles, and dance styles. The dependent variables were found
by summing the ratings for the products in each group.
Cronbach alphas were calculated for the measures of willingness to try and
the perceived risk associated with the product groupings, as well as for the
independent measures for fatalism, traditionalism, religious commitment, and
locus of control. The alphas are shown in Table II. After investigating the item-
to-total correlations, one item in the Traditionalism scale was deleted since it
had low correlations for all five countries. Additionally, given the low reliability
for the Locus of Control measures across the different countries, the variable
was also dropped from further analyses. The reliability of the Religious
Commitment scale is consistently high across countries, and the alphas for the
technical products and for Traditionalism are acceptable.
 International
Willingness to try new Perceived risk associated with
Marketing products — by product the products — by product
Review grouping* grouping*
8,3 Country I II III IV I II III IV
Korea 0.69 0.54 0.45 0.67 0.81 0.69 0.45 0.58
United States 0.64 0.65 0.38 0.67 0.82 0.88 0.62 0.56
14 Thailand 0.65 0.73 0.32 0.69 0.80 0.86 0.51 0.57
India 0.69 0.53 0.58 0.57 0.75 0.80 0.55 0.53
Senega] 0.69 0.72 0.66 0.53 0.69 0.78 0.64 0.60
Combined 0.67 0.59 0.64 0.53 0.79 0.81 0.56 0.53

Fate Traditionalism Religious Locus of

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orientation commitment control

Korea 0.49 0.42 0.74 0.31
United States 0.56 0.60 0.92 0.52
Thailand 0.60 0.71 0.83 0.40
India 0.48 0.67 0.88 0.30
Senegal 0.47 0.72 0.85 0.28
Combined 0.59 0.62 0.79 0.41
Table II.
Cronbach Alpha *Explanation of terms: Group I — Technical products; Group II — Media products; Group
Reliabilities, by III — Entertainment products; Group IV — Fashion products
Country

Cross-national Differences in the Cultural Variables

Table III shows the ANOVA results for the cross-cultural variables. As
expected, the predominantly Christian US sample had the lowest level of
fatalism, followed by Thailand, Senegal, and Korea, with India having the
highest. Korea and the US had the highest levels of religious commitment.
Senegal had the highest level of traditionalism, with the US having the lowest.
Clearly, strong differences in cultural values do exist across the five countries.

Cross-national Differences in the Innovation Resistance Variables

The results of the ANOVA analyses for the willingness to try new products,
the perceived risk, and the purchase recall measures are also shown in Table
III. The pattern of results varies by the types of products being evaluated.
Indian respondents were the most willing to try the non-technical (media,
entertainment and fashion) products, but were relatively less willing to try
the technical products. Our early conjecture was that this was due, in part,
to the fact that the Indian sample was predominantly female; however, there
were no sex differences in willingness to try the different groups of products
in the Indian sample. Korean respondents were the least willing to try the
non-technical products and were among the most likely (along with the
Senegalese) to be willing to try technical products. The Indian sample's greater
willingness to try new media and entertainment products (as well as the Thai
 Innovation
Country Resistance
Variable Korea US Thailand India Senegal F* p
Cultural values
Fatalism 2.8a 2.0c 2.3b 2.9a 2.7a 121.0 0.001
Traditionalism 3.5b 3.2c 3.5b 3.5b 3.7a 25.8 0.001
Religious commitment 3.6a 3.6a 3.4b 3.3b 3.3b 7.9 0.001
15

Willingness to try**
Technical products 2.7a 2.6b 2.6ab 2.6ab 2.8a 4.4 0.002
Media products 2.8d 3.0c 3.1bc 3.3a 3.3ab 24.1 0.001
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Entertainment 2.3d 3.3a 2.9b 3.4a 2.6c 170.0 0.000

Fashion products 2.3d 2.7b 2.4c 2.9a 2.3cd 49.4 0.001

Risk associated with

Technical products 2.5a 2.5a 2.7a 2.6a 2.3b 5.2 0.001
Media products 2.0b 1.5c 1.9b 1.6c 2.4a 49.8 0.001
Entertainment 2.6b 2.3c 2.6b 2.3c 3.0a 29.8 0.001
Fashion products 2.4ab 2.4ab 2.5a 2.3b 2.5ab 2.8 0.030

New products bought 2.2cd 3.1a 2.4c 2.6b 2.1d 101.0 0.001

Likely to seek advice

about new products 3.4b 4.0a 3.2c 4.1a 3.7b 50.2 0.001

Likely to give advice

about new products 3.1c 4.1a 3.1bc 4.1a 3.4b 137.0 0.001
Scale values range from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) for willingness to try and from 1 to
4 for perceived risk.
* The degrees of freedom term for each test was approximately 4.1600.
** The alphabetical characters (a,b,c,d) indicate where the significant group differences
occurred. Table HI.
Analysis of Variance
Results

sample's moderate willingness, compared with the Korean and Senegalese

samples) is consistent with the tone of Iyer's (1988) observations of South-
east Asian countries; that there is a rapid diffusion of American cinema
(especially the Rambo-type of movies) throughout the area.
In terms of the risk associated with the different types of products, the
Senegalese perceived less risk to be associated with technical products but
relatively more risk to be associated with non-technical products. It may be
that people in the least developed countries are fascinated with the power of
 International technology. It was suggested in Folkes's (1988) study of the availability heuristic
Marketing that failure estimates are higher when they are easy to imagine. Perhaps the.
Review Senegalese were more willing to try new technical products because they are
8,3 so unfamiliar with them and, therefore, cannot imagine failure so easily.
To a large extent, the cross-national perceived-risk results mirror the
willingness-to-try-new-products results, with those countries' respondents who
are more likely to try new products also perceiving less risk to be associated
16 with them. The patterns of innovativeness and perceived risk across the
countries were inconsistent; they depend on product categories. However, when
recall of purchase behaviour is investigated, the pattern of results for the number
of new products purchased in the past year is similar to the per capita income
distribution, indicating the importance of purchasing power or the ability to
innovate. The US respondents purchased the most products, while the
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Senegalese purchased the fewest. The US and the Indian respondents were
more likely to seek and give advice on new products.

Canonical Relationships between the Cultural and Innovation Resistance Var

Differences across thefivecountries in terms of culture and innovation resistance
are not particularly enlightening. It is more important to determine why those
differences exist. Although causal relationships could not be established,
canonical correlation was used to relate the cultural variables to the willingness
to try the four groups of new products and to the risk perceived to be associated
with the four groups of products across the five countries. The analysis was
conducted using standardised responses from thefivecountries to reduce the
response set bias associated with cultural differences. The results are shown
in Table IV. Only the first canonical relationship was significant in each case.
For the willingness to try new products, fatalistic respondents were less willing
to try new entertainment products. For the perceived risk associated with
products, more fatalistic consumers were more likely to perceive higher levels
of risk for the media and entertainment products.
Overall, the study found some support for our hypotheses. Hypothesis la,
that fatalism would be related inversely to the willingness to try new products,

Cultural Variables* Product groups*

Fate Trad Relcom I II III IV p

Willingness to try new products

0.81 0.48 0.04 0.54 -0.27 -0.83 -0.05 0.0001
Perceived risk
Table IV.
Canonical 0.77 0.47 0.22 -0.30 0.69 0.55 -0.06 0.0001
Relationships * Explanation of terms: Fate — Fate orientation; Trad — Traditionalism; Relcom —
between Cultural
and Dependent Religious commitment; Group I — Technical products; Group II — Media products;
Variables Using Group III — Entertainment products; Group IV — Fashion products
Combined Samples
 was supported for entertainment products. Hypothesis lb proposed that fatalism Innovation
would be inversely related to the level of risk perceived for products; however, Resistance
a direct relationship was found instead for media and entertainment products.
Little support was found for Hypotheses 2a, 2b, 3a and 3b. It appears that
traditionalism and religious commitment have less explanatory value for innovation
resistance than has fatalism.
Limitations and Implications 17
Congruent with the majority of studies involving cross-cultural consumer
behaviour, this study found differences across five nations in terms of the
perception of new products in the marketplace. The study also investigated
cultural variables such as fate orientation, traditionalism, and religious
commitment and found cross-national differences. When the cultural variables
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were related to willingness to innovate and to perceived risk, fatalism was found
to explain significant variation in innovation resistance for entertainment and
media innovations as opposed to technical or fashion-oriented innovations.
This study has a few measurement limitations. First, although innovation
resistance was measured using a traditional scale of "willingness-to-try", it
is a weak dependent variable that does not fully measure resistance to innovation.
Secondly, none of the scales included in the study have been subjected to
rigorous cross-national reliability and validity tests.
Another limitation of the study is that the sample dealt with students from
relatively large cities. The results are not generalisable across the population
of each country. However, international marketers are more likely to target
consumers in the middle and upper classes in major cities as their primary
market. Another weakness of the study is that religion and nationality were
confounded in this study, as the samples in each country were predominantly
one religion (although that religion differed across all five countries). Future
research would be richer if religious differences within a country could also
be investigated.Yetthis study investigated religious commitment and not religion,
making the results presented in the previous section much less susceptible
to the confound.
Despite the aforementioned limitations, there is some indication that
understanding the fundamental cultural values of a country can help explain
differences in innovation (especially those related to media and to entertainment)
in the global marketplace. This understanding has several marketing mix strategy
implications. Once the marketer has assessed that a market is associated with
high perceived risk and low innovativeness, a strategy to reduce risk and increase
new product adoption rates can be developed if the cultural variables related
to the resistance are known. For instance, if fatalism is linked to the unwillingness
to try new products, it is likely that the provision of external information about
the products will be ineffective. It might be more effective to induce the consumer
in such a culture to try the product through free sampling or some other means
of providing the consumer with a "hands-on" experience. An experience-based
hierarchy of affects where behaviour precedes cognitive evaluation may be more
successful than an approach which assumes that consumers actively process
 International information about the product prior to purchase. On the other hand, if
Marketing traditionalism is linked with the reluctance to try new products, the marketer
Review should attempt to position the new product as a continuous innovation that fits
8,3 well with past experience. Thus it is crucial to understand why there is resistance
to new product adoption, so that proper risk reduction strategies can be made
feasible.
18 Most new products have both instrumental and expressive aspects (Venkatesh
and Vitalari, 1984). If consumers in a country are fatalistic, the active participation
required by the instrumental functions may be especially hard to encourage
effectively. On the other hand, it may be that the expressive functions can be
enjoyed with much less active participation. For example, the adoption of a
personal computer may be nurtured more successfully in a fatalistic society,
if those functions requiring relatively high start-up costs (word-processing,
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analytical software, financial planning, etc.) are not stressed so much as those
requiring low start-up costs (games and other entertaining software). If the
country is also traditional in nature, it may be necessary to position the
expressive aspects of the new product so that they fit within the context of
past experience. In the personal computer example, it may be beneficial to
develop new games which are representations of games familiar to the culture
in which the computer is being introduced. Such a tactic would not be required
in a low fatalism, low tradition country where external information search would
be expected to be more common.
It appears that fatalism is likely to be directly related to innovation resistance
for new products such as entertainment and media products than it is in the
case of technical and symbolic products. Our results generally show that fatalism
is not a serious deterrent to new product introductions in technical product
categories. With new product introductions in the non-technical category,
marketers may be well advised to concentrate on reducing consumer risk in
as many ways as possible. Marketers of non-technical products in international
markets need to become cognisant of the cultural orientation of the society
in terms of fatalism and traditionalism and then the effectiveness of several risk
reduction strategy options should be tested.
The diffusion of products across products also involves public policy issues.
Western businesses are frequently stymied by foreign governmental policies
that seem to present barriers to entry. To the extent that those government
policies reflect accurately reluctance on the part of the culture to adopt new
products, efforts to put pressure on foreign governments to change their policies
are probably not going to generate much volume, even if they are successful.
A Muslim country is not going to become a major market for pork regardless
of its government's policies with regard to importing. However, such efforts
might be far more effective when directed towards those cultures, of which
the people are less fatalistic and less traditional. Study of the innovation resistance
tendencies of various cultures not only will shed light on the proper design
and implementation of marketing mix strategies, but may also point out those
countries for which efforts to reduce trade barriers might be most beneficial.
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