An examination of non-adoption and decision inertia: A Web-based perspective

The innovation diffusion theory states that an individual will go through a set of stages to ultimately arrive at the decision to adopt or reject an innovation. This research presents a theoretical concept called decision inertia. Decision inertia is described as an intermediate state in the diffusion process. This state occurs when an individual develops a neutral attitude about the innovation and/or decides to neither explicitly adopt nor explicitly reject the innovation. Further, the type of innovation, the type of information and individual motivation are the main factors determining decision inertia. The three main objectives of this research are to: develop a theoretical framework for decision inertia; explore the attributes of this intermediate state; demonstrate its impact on the ultimate adoption decision. The theoretical construct of decision inertia can be very critical to how an innovation ultimately diffuses or does not diffuse through a target population. This research is motivated by the need to better understand non-adopters and the factors affecting their behavior---ultimately presenting and examining an explanation to resistance of technological innovations.