New Publication at the Institute for Innovation Management: How Anger and Fear Shape Innovation Adoption

Vergrößern

Consumers frequently experience both positive and negative emotions in response to new products, shaping how interested they are in adopting vs rejecting the innovation. Because negative emotions are inherently unpleasant, consumers seek to mitigate them and often do so by rejecting the source of the negative emotion — i.e., the new product. Even when the new product offers benefits to users and society, negative emotions can prevail and lead to innovation failure in the market. Companies introducing innovations may default to trying to explain the benefits, hoping to overcome fear or anger. Yet, little is known on the comparative effectiveness of different communication strategies in the face of innovation-induced negative emotions. The study investigates how consumer fear and anger impact the adoption of new products, specifically focusing on the functional food industry. We explore three distinct firm communication strategies—information provision, perspective-taking, and happiness demonstration—designed to help consumers regulate negative emotions. Through multiple experimental studies, the findings demonstrate that providing detailed information is the most effective approach for alleviating both fear and anger, which subsequently encourages product adoption. The research also reveals that mixed negative emotions are easier to address through communication than isolated, discrete emotions. Furthermore, the findings indicate that communication strategies are generally more successful at mitigating fear than they are at reducing anger.

Read more about this research in the forthcoming International Journal of Innovation Management article.

Gurtner, N., Gurtner, S., & Spanjol, J. (2026), “New Product Adoption under Fear and Anger: The Role of Communication Strategies,” International Journal of Innovation Management, online first. https://doi.org/10.1142/S1363919626500490