Every year, about 25,000 new products are introduced in the United States. Most of these products failat considerable expense to the companies that produce them. Such failures are typically thought to result from consumers resistance to innovation, but marketers have tended to focus instead on consumers who show little resistance, despite these early adopters comprising only 20 percent of the consumer population.
Shaul Oreg and Jacob Goldenberg bring the insights of marketing and organizational behavior to bear on the attitudes and behaviors of the remaining 80 percent who resist...