Consumer Perceptions towards Radical Innovation: Autonomous Cars

This study aims to investigate consumer perception towards radical innovation in order to provide practitioners with an understanding of consumer behaviour with a particular focus on the correlation between consumer resistance to innovation and intention of adoption. Such knowledge is likely to provide guidance to organisations for the upcoming launch of their radical innovation, and hence to reduce the innovation failure rates. Technological developments over the years have changed how consumers manage their lives. Nowadays consumers’ lives are getting “smarter” stimulated by the development of “smartphones”, “smart homes”, “smart offices” and most recently “smart cars”. In this paper, autonomous cars have been selected as radical innovation due to its unique status as a widely discussed and globally promoted product but still in the pre-launch stage. Our survey identified financial, tradition and norm as major barriers for consumer resistance towards radical innovation. In comparison, image and status associated with driving an autonomous car were perceived to be a highly valued factor.