the design of service innovations – A study on shared mobility services
Master’s Thesis 30 credits
Department of Business Studies Uppsala University
Spring Semester of 2019
Date of Submission: 2019-05-29
Melanie Bieg
Mathilde Helgesson
Supervisor: Leon Caesarius
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Supervisor
First of all, we want to thank our supervisor Leon Caesarius for his encouragement, feedback and guidance throughout the whole semester.
Fellow Students
We also want to thank our fellow students for their constructive criticism, which helped us to improve our thesis.
Respondents
Lastly, we would like to thank our respondents for taking their time and providing valuable insights for this study. Without your support and expertise, this thesis would not have been
able to provide so interesting insights
2019-05-29
______________________ ______________________
Mathilde Helgesson Melanie Bieg
Abstract
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Title: The role of innovation resistance in the design of service innovations - A study on shared mobility services
Authors: Mathilde Helgesson and Melanie Bieg Supervisor: Leon Caesarius
Date 2019-05-29
Background According to innovation literature, between 50% and 90% of innovations fail. An explanation for failing innovations is offered by scholars in the field of innovation resistance, who argue that it is more relevant to pay attention to the reasons why consumers reject an innovation, rather than learning about their motivations to adopt a new product or service.
At the same time, previous marketing literature has devoted little attention towards design, despite its strategic importance and its role as a driver of innovation and competitive advantage.
Purpose The purpose of this study was to investigate how companies perceive innovation resistance towards service innovations and how it is reflected in the service design.
Research
Question How do companies consider potential innovation resistance in the design of shared mobility services prior and post market launch?
Methodology The study applied a qualitative research design. The data was collected, using semi-structured interviews as primary source of data collection and the sector of shared mobility was chosen as empirical ground.
Conclusion This study has four major takeaways in relation to the study’s aim. First, companies were aware of all the barriers, except for social risk and perceived security risk. Second, companies made most service design adaptations based on the usage and value barrier both prior and post launch. Third, although the tradition and norm barrier and image barrier were considered critical for an innovation’s success, companies did not change the service design accordingly. Finally, it was revealed that companies followed a hybrid approach of innovation, where more of a design-driven innovation strategy was used to generate innovation ideas and a user-centered approach was applied by involving consumers in pilot studies and listening to the consumer voices post launch.
Keywords Innovation Resistance, Innovation Failure, Design Management, Service Design, Consumer Barriers, Shared Mobility
Table of Content
1. Introduction 4
1.1 Background 4
1.2 Problem Statement 5
1.3 Purpose and Research Question 6
1.4 Delimitations 7
2. The Sector of Shared Mobility 8
3. Literature Review 9
3.1 Design Management 9
3.1.1 User-Centered Design 9
3.1.2 Design-Driven Innovation 10
3.2 Innovation Resistance 10
3.2.1 Drivers of Active Innovation Resistance 11
3.2.1.1 Functional Barriers 12
3.2.1.2 Psychological Barriers 14
3.3 Analytical Framework 15
4. Methodology 17
4.1 Research Approach 17
4.2 Research Strategy 17
4.3 Selection of Study Objects 18
4.3.1 Selection of Participants 18
4.3.2 Pre-Study 19
4.4 Data Analysis 19
4.5 Operationalization 19
4.6 Ethical Considerations 20
4.7 Trustworthiness of Data 20
4.8 Method Discussion 21
5. Empirical Results 22
5.1 Design Innovation Strategy 22
5.2 Usage Barrier 22
5.3 Value Barrier 24
5.4 Risk Barrier 24
5.5 Tradition and Norm Barrier 26
5.6 Image Barrier 27
6. Analysis 29
6.1 A Hybrid Innovation Design Approach 29
6.2. Decreasing the Usage Barrier by Increasing Availability & Decreasing Complexity 30
6.3 The Interplay of Price, Comfort & Flexibility to constitute the Value Barrier 32 6.4 Functional and Economic risk as Main Determinants of the Risk Barrier 33 6.5 The Absence of Design Change to Minimise the Tradition and Norm Barrier 34 6.6 Recognition of the Image Barrier, Nonetheless no Impact on Design 35 6.7 Summarising the Effect of Different Barriers on the Service Design 37
7. Conclusion 39
7.1 Theoretical and Managerial Contribution 40
7.2 Limitation and Future Research 41
References 42
Appendices 49
Appendix 1 - Interview Guide 49
Appendix 2 - Selected Organisations 51
Appendix 3 - List of Participants 53
Appendix 4 - Operationalisation of Theory 54
List of Figures
Figure 1 - Drivers of Active Innovation Resistance 12
Figure 2 - Analytical Model based on Literature Review 15
Figure 3 - Revised Model 29
Figure 4 - Effect of the Different Barriers on Service Design 37
1. Introduction
Within this first section, the motivation for this study is portrayed. A background on innovation resistance as a cause of failing innovations and the sector of shared mobility is provided as a basis for introducing the focus of the study which is the effect of innovation resistance on service design changes. Finally, the purpose and research question are presented and delimitations are mentioned.
1.1 Background
A successful innovation can change both the world, its market and the life of the customers using it (Conway, 2018). Coming up with and launching new successful products and services on the market can enhance a company's competitive position, enlarge their service or product range and have financial effects on a long-term perspective (Bayus, Erickson, and Jacobson, 2003; Gourville, 2006). However, high failure rates of innovations have been proclaimed.
According to innovation literature, the failure rate varies between 50 % and 90%, measured in terms of insufficient financial returns (Sivadas and Dwyer, 2000; Andrew and Sirkin, 2003;
Schneider and Hall, 2011). This represents a serious problem that could generate negative impacts on future revenues, brand equity or endanger a competitive position in the long run (Bayus et al. 2003, Liao and Cheng, 2014).
An explanation for failing innovations is offered by scholars in the field of innovation resistance, that state that before consumers accept innovations, they have to get past an initial resisting attitude. Researchers in this field argue that it is more relevant to pay attention to the reasons why consumers reject an innovation in the first place, rather than learning about their motivations to adopt a new product or service (Ram and Sheth, 1989; Talke and Heidenreich, 2014; Claudy, Garcia and O’Driscoll, 2015). Following this logic, this thesis adopts a company perspective to investigate innovation resistance. The focus lies on active innovation resistance, which occurs at the consumer persuasion stage, as this type of resistance can be affected by companies’ choices (Rogers, 2003). Therefore, innovation resistance is defined as an unfavourable attitudinal outcome towards an innovation after consumers’ comparison of innovation-related features with the status quo (Kleijnen, Lee, and Wetzels, 2009; Talke and Heidenreich, 2014; Claudy et al. 2015; Joachim, Spieth and Heidenreich, 2018). These innovation-specific features can suffer negative assessment, due to consumers mental barriers, which occur if the innovation triggers deviations from familiar usage habits and everyday routines or changes from the sociocultural environment, personal beliefs or inherent norms (Garcia, Bardhi and Friedrich, 2007; Kleijnen et al. 2009; Claudy et al. 2015).
Since the transformation from car ownership towards using alternative means of transportations, consumers are required to break free from daily routines and ingrained cultural patterns (Van der Steen, Van Deventer, De Bruijn, Van Twist, Heuvelhof, Haynes and Chen, 2012). This study explores the phenomenon of innovation resistance within the sector of shared mobility. Shared mobility stands for a number of innovative mobility options, which offer
consumers the use of multiple short-term means of transportation instead of using privately owned vehicles (Machado, Hue, Berssaneti, and Quintanilha, 2018). These innovative mobility options are gaining importance, since two-thirds of the global population is predicted to live in urban areas by the year 2050, leading to an even higher number of vehicles in cities and an increased demand on transportation solutions (The World Bank, 2017). Besides a negative effect on the environment, the consequences are increased traffic jams, limited parking possibilities and inadequate public transportations systems (Pojani and Stead, 2017). If shared mobility providers cannot convince consumers of the benefits of shared mobility services, innovations in this field are doomed to fail.
1.2 Problem Statement
Although a wide range of studies have examined different drivers of innovation resistance from a consumer perspective (Claudy et al. 2015; Laukkanen, 2016; Mani and Chouk, 2017; Joachim et al. 2018; Mani and Chouk, 2018), there is limited research on whether and how companies actually prevent innovation resistance to occur. The few studies that investigate how companies can counteract innovation resistance concentrate on how to utilize specific marketing strategies and tools to tackle resistance towards existing products or services (Ram, 1987; Garcia et al.
2007; Heidenreich and Kraemer, 2016).
However, current research has failed to pay attention to how companies create and adapt their service design based on potential innovation resistance, despite the fact that it is argued that both marketers’ and designers’ involvement in the development process is crucial for the success of new products and services (Micheli, Jaina, Goffin and Lemke, 2012; Beverland, Micheli and Farrelly, 2016). While some authors emphasise positive effects of design on a firm’s performance and its importance as a strategic value (Jevnaker, 2000; Verganti, 2008;
Santos Dos, Bueno, Kato and Corrêa, 2018), others highlight its role as a driver of innovation and competitive advantage in connection to strategy, costs, marketing, logistics and quality (Teece, Pisano and Shuen, 1997; Acklin, 2013; MacLean, MacIntosh and Seidl, 2015). Design in this context goes beyond the aesthetic function and is considered a component of an organisational strategy to come closer to consumers and their needs (De Mozota, 2006;
Verganti, 2008). Even though previous research has investigated the involvement of consumers in the design of new services, little has been said about how consumer feedback affects the design specifically (Menguc, Auh and Yannopoulos, 2014). Therefore, design matters have gained little attention from marketing literature (Zhang, Hu and Kotabe, 2011). Based on that, this study explores the involvement of consumers and design changes made prior and post service launches.
To investigate the design decisions of companies, offering shared mobility services, this thesis additionally utilises the field of design management to understand how innovation ideas emerge and are transformed into service designs. Companies are argued to follow either a user- centered or a design-driven approach (Verganti, 2008; Norman and Verganti, 2014, Zampollo, 2015). The former is concerned with the consolidation of the user’s perspective into the design
process in order to create a new product or service (Maguire, 2001; Siebenhandl, Smuc, Mayr, and Nagl, 2013). In contrast, researchers arguing for a design-driven innovation strategy argue that, relying on consumer perceptions is deemed counterproductive for exploring possibilities to significantly change meanings of existing services or products (Verganti, 2008; Dell’Era, Marchesi and Verganti, 2010; Bellini, Era and Verganti, 2012). Therefore, an innovation idea does not emerge by listening to consumer needs, but instead by sharing knowledge about potential new product or service meanings within a network of external actors (Verganti, 2008;
Bellini et al. 2012).
Regardless of the distinction of the two design strategies, both streams of research suppose that the response to an organisation’s design and innovation efforts is the consumers’ positive attitude and purchase intention. Thus, possible negative attitudes towards innovation are not discussed by either of the research fields. Yet, a high number of failing innovations still remains, as previously stated. What is lacking is a critical consideration of cases, where innovations meet unexpected rejection, despite the adherence to the specific design process, and how potential innovation resistance is taken on by companies in their design processes both prior and post market launch in order to prevent their innovations from failing in the market.
This study seeks to establish a connection between the insofar consumer-oriented literature of innovation resistance (Ram and Sheth, 1989; Claudy et al. 2015; Laukkanen, 2016; Mani and Chouk, 2017; Joachim et al. 2018; Mani and Chouk, 2018) and research in the field of design management (Veryzer and Borja de Mozota, 2005; Baek, Cagiltay, Boling, and Frick, 2008;
Verganti, 2008; Dell’Era et al. 2010; Bellini et al. 2012; Siebenhandl et al. 2013). Looking deeper into design choices of companies within the shared mobility sector will help both academics and practitioners understand how potential negative consumer responses affect the creation and adaptation of the service design both prior and post market launch, ultimately increasing the potential future success of innovations.
1.3 Purpose and Research Question
The aim of this study is to investigate how companies perceive innovation resistance towards service innovations and how it is reflected in the service design. Therefore, the purpose of this study is twofold. First, the aim is to reveal how companies think of different consumer barriers towards their innovations. Second, the thesis also aims to reveal how they react to potential innovation resistance in their service design both prior and post market launch. This then results in the following research question:
How do companies consider potential innovation resistance in the design of shared mobility services prior to and post market launch?
1.4 Delimitations
The companies participating in this study are all of Swedish or German origin and active in the sector of shared mobility. In addition to this, this study investigates innovations retrospectively, meaning that the chosen shared mobility innovations are currently active on the market and are discussed retrospectively in the interviews.
2. The Sector of Shared Mobility
The following chapter provides a presentation of the empirical setting for this study, which is the sector of shared mobility.
Over the past decade, the society has moved from the need for independence and self- identification via ownership towards an increasing shared mentality and consumption practices, where private property, products, services, and personal skills are exchanged and shared with others (Belk, 2014; Machado et al. 2018). That shift towards sharing lies at the core of the shared economy, which is based on two key features: Consumers ability to temporarily use products and services based on a non-ownership offer and the possibility to connect with strangers on online platforms (Belk, 2014). By that, the shared economy fosters an increasing sustainable consumption behaviour and leads to social, environmental and economic benefits (Machado et al. 2018).
Within the shared economy, shared mobility is one of the sectors with the highest potential to transform previous independent consumption practices and is defined as the “the shared use of a vehicle, bicycle [...] enables users to have short-term access to transportation modes on an
‘as-needed’ basis” (Shaheen, Chan, Bansal and Cohen, 2015, p. 4). The aim is to support consumers in developing a shared mentality in terms of transportation, so that they do not deem the possession and use of an own car as necessary (Machado et al. 2018). Furthermore, by providing consumers with the possibility to plan, book and pay the use of non-owned vehicles within one mobility platform, the usage rate of each car is increased, while environmental pollution is decreased and traffic jams and individual transportation costs are reduced (Fraiberger and Sundararajan, 2015; Vecchio, 2018). Some business models operate as a multimodal trip aggregator, offering the customer an overview of different shared mobility options, which they can book and pay either monthly or directly online (Shaheen, Cohen and Zohdy, 2016).
In the scope of this study, the relevant modes of shared mobility are carsharing, bike sharing and ridesharing. Carsharing is a transportation service where multiple people have access to the same vehicles (Shaheen et al. 2015). Carsharing is offered either station-based or free floating. To use the former, consumers need to book a car in advance and pick up and drop it off in designated parking spots, whereas the later service offers consumers to leave the car anywhere within a specified geographical area (Shaheen et al. 2015; Machado et al. 2018). The same principle applies to station-based or free-floating bike sharing, where bicycles are shared amongst consumers. Ridesharing, on the other hand, is a service where consumers commute with other travellers with overlapping paths and destinations (Chen, Zahiri, Zhang, 2017). The driver is either a designated one or a private person sharing the own ride with others (Shaheen et al. 2015; Andreasson, Leurent, and Rossetti, 2016).
3. Literature Review
The chapter below presents the literature that serve as a foundation for this thesis. This section outlines design management with its two approaches of design-driven innovation and user- centered design, before innovation resistance with its three functional and two psychological barriers are introduced. Finally, an analytical framework for this study is presented.
3.1 Design Management
In the 1970s, a vigorous debate emerged about the future direction for innovation processes (Verganti, 2008). The debate stemmed from where the influential factors of new products and processes come from and identified two common ways how innovation impulses originate:
market pull vs. technology push (Schoen, 1967; Brem and Voigt, 2009). According to the market pull strategy, innovations stem from the market itself and the needs of customers, whereas technology push implies that firms push their innovativeness and technical competence on the consumer as a result of internal research activities (Schoen, 1967). In the following subsections, two design strategies will be introduced and briefly connected to the market pull vs. technology push debate.
3.1.1 User-Centered Design
Based on the market-pull strategy, some authors argue for the importance to involve consumers throughout the design process. This user-centered design (UCD) strategy, implies that design and product or service innovation should start from a deep analysis of what the user demands and needs (Maguire, 2001; Cagan and Vogel, 2002; Vredenburg, Isensee, and Righi, 2002;
Veryzer and Borja de Mozota, 2005). The UCD-approach is rotating tests and circles of evaluating the innovation with constant involvement of the consumer (Maguire, 2001;
Siebenhandl et al. 2013). Having the consumers complicit in the design process can have a significant impact on the development of the product or service and the eventual success of it (Maguire, 2001; Vredenburg, Isensee and Righi, 2002; Veryzer and Borja de Mozota, 2005;
Siebenhandl et al. 2013). The belief is that companies can gain insights valuable for their service innovation from the outside-in by asking their users of their needs, observing how they use existing services and looking over their consumption processes (Maguire, 2001; Baek et al. 2008). Designing together with consumers possibly results in cost-savings (reduction in redesign work or reprints) and a shortened design process (Veryzer and Borja de Mozota, 2005).
According to the UCD strategy, it is also common to use prototypes or pilot-test early on in the process to avoid investing resources into a product or service that might fail (Robinson, Chen, Lengerich, Meyer and MacEachren, 2005; Roth, Ross, Finch, Luo and MacEachren, 2010;
Chung, 2017). By using prototypes, developers gain user feedback at every stage of the process, learn from mistakes and take them into account to create a user-oriented solution (Robinson et al. 2005; Roth et al. 2010; Chung, 2017; Biroscak, Schneider, Martinez, Aguado and Bryant, 2018). Additionally, Chung (2017) emphasises to include both mainstream consumers and
consumers on the extreme end of the spectrum, so that the creativity is stretched and force the team away from the status quo ideas.
3.1.2 Design-Driven Innovation
The theory of technology push has laid the ground for the design-driven innovation (DDI) strategy. The technology-push approach triggers the origination of ground-breaking products or services on the market, based on companies focus on identifying and developing new technologies, while design-push deals with the new semantic meaning of a product or service as a driving force of innovations (Bellini et al. 2012). Instead of trusting in customers as a help to understand possible changes in service meanings, research is done with several external and internal actors in order to change the current sociocultural regimes (Walsh, Kirchhoff and Newbert, 2002; Verganti, 2008; Brem and Voigt, 2009). These companies develop superior capabilities to propose innovation that can redefine what a product or a service means to a consumer (Verganti, 2008; Verganti and Öberg, 2013). Having revealed the overlap of technology and design push, one of the most important questions for companies is how to manage design-driven innovations (Verganti, 2008). Based on the abstracted knowledge from the interaction with external actors, a new individual vision and innovative product or service proposal are formulated/created. Reid, Brentani and Kleinschmidt (2014, p. 1352) refer to this activity as a “market vision competence - that is, an ability to link advanced technologies to market opportunities of the future.”
Therefore, DDI is concerned with altering the reason why consumers buy and utilize a product or a service (Verganti and Öberg, 2013). Companies envision radically novel meanings and product or service languages, which intend to alter the current sociocultural context and they propose these meanings within a final product or service offer to the consumer (Verganti, 2008). The underlying notion of DDI is that consumers cannot imagine alternative product or service interpretations outside their contemporary sociocultural setting, which is in line with findings of service innovation scholars (Ordanini and Parasuraman, 2011; Melton and Hartline, 2015) who argue that, consumers are restricted to their own experiences and fantasies and struggle to look beyond them, when trying to create a new service concept. Thereby, relying primarily on consumer needs and their suggestions is deemed to be counterproductive for exploring possibilities to significantly change existing product or service meanings (Gero and Kannengiesse, 2004; Verganti, 2008).
3.2 Innovation Resistance
Scholars who gave rise to the field of innovation resistance, argue that consumers are not open for change and preferably remain with the status quo (Sheth, 1981). Innovation resistance is considered as a specific form of resistance to change (Ram and Sheth, 1989). However, consumer buying behaviour has evolved over the past decades. Constructs like variety seeing and impulse buying are more recently argued to capture consumers shifting choice of brand, and oppose the notion of consumers being inherently resistant to change (Punj, 2011;
Michaelidou, 2012). The concept of consumer innovativeness strikes a balance between both
positions by introducing different levels of consumers eagerness to try new products or services, such as argued by Vandecasteele and Geuens (2010). Talke and Heidenreich (2014) identify two forms of resistance located at different stages of the innovation-decision model by Rogers (2003). Arguing, that innovation resistance at the knowledge stage is captured as consumers’ innovation-averse attitude, based on an individual tendency to resist changes and situation-dependent satisfaction with familiar products or services (Talke and Heidenreich, 2014). This inclination is captured as passive innovation resistance, which occurs prior to an actual product or service evaluation by consumers who are satisfied with the status quo and hence reject an innovation at the knowledge stage (Heidenreich and Kraemer, 2016; Van Tonder, 2017). Meaning that some consumers are aware of a new product or service, but perceive it to be a lesser option than the familiar product or service, without comparing features of both options. As previously mentioned, this study investigates the connection between innovation resistance and service design, therefore passive innovation resistance is not considered, since the use of marketing instruments to draw consumers attention towards innovation-specific attributes is beyond the scope of this study.
The focus of this study is active innovation resistance, which means that consumers gain knowledge about a new product or service, but also actively evaluate innovation-specific attributes and compare it with the previous situation (Talke and Heidenreich, 2014). Therefore, this study focuses on innovation resistance which occurs at the persuasion stage, as this type of resistance can be affected by a company’s service design and specific features (Rogers, 2003).
The set of product- or service attributes is influenced by consumers’ individual conception of the product- or service function and perceived consequences of its usage (Keller, 1993). As a result, consumers form mental arguments against and for an innovation, which ultimately leads to a positive or negative attitude towards the new product or service (Kleijnen et al. 2009;
Joachim et al. 2018). Based on that, active innovation resistance is understood as an unfavourable attitudinal outcome towards an innovation after consumers’ active comparison between status quo and innovation-related features (Kleijnen et al. 2009; Talke and Heidenreich, 2014; Claudy et al. 2015; Joachim et al. 2018). An unfavourable attitude will, in turn, lead to consumers refusal of the innovation, since they do not recognize a functional superiority or do not see a reason to deviate from established usage habits, personal beliefs or social norms (Ram and Sheth, 1989; Talke and Heidenreich, 2014). It should be noted that some consumers might evaluate an innovation as generally suitable or beneficial, however not under the present circumstances (Laukkanen, 2016; Mani and Chouk, 2017). These consumers postpone their final decision and at least temporarily resist an innovation until they decide, whether to reject or accept the innovation.
3.2.1 Drivers of Active Innovation Resistance
Thirty years ago, Ram and Sheth (1989) introduced a classification of five consumers mental barriers towards innovations to demonstrate the reason why they turn down new services or products; usage, value, risk (functional barriers), image and traditional barrier (psychological barriers). Despite its age, modern studies still take their point of departure based on this
framework to apply the barriers to different contexts or identify further relevant drivers of resistance (Garcia et al. 2007; Antioco and Kleijnen, 2010; Talke and Heidenreich, 2014;
Claudy et al. 2015; Laukkanen, 2016; Mani and Chouk, 2017; Joachim et al. 2018; Mani and Chouk, 2018). In general, functional barriers are a consequence of the new product or service causing deviations from familiar routines, in the sense that some innovation attributes might change the everyday habits of consumers (Kleijnen et al. 2009; Claudy et al. 2015).
Psychological barriers, on the other hand, are not concerned with the existing market, but rather to what extent the innovation conflicts with the social environment, traditions or personal beliefs of the consumer (Garcia et al. 2007; Kleijnen et al. 2009).
However, more recent studies argue that Ram and Sheth’s (1989) original barriers are not sufficient to explain all present reasons why consumers resist innovations. Some scholars argue that the risk barrier should be broken down into more specific subsets (Kleijnen et al. 2009, Antioco and Kleijnen, 2010; Joachim et al. 2018), while others concentrate on finding additional innovation barriers (Talke and Heidenreich, 2014; Joachim et al. 2018). Another critique towards the application of Ram and Sheth’s model (1989) is that in modern times the original five barriers are insufficient to grasp consumers concerns about increasing technological and digital features of innovations (Laukkanen, 2016; Heinze, Thomann, and Fischer, 2017; Joachim et al. 2018; Mani and Chouk, 2018). However, since the focus of this study is not to empirically test or generate an exhaustive categorisation of potential consumer barriers, but to gain insight into how innovation resistance plays a role in the design management of innovations, Ram and Sheth’s classification (1989) is considered appropriate and the five barriers are summarised in figure 1.
Figure 1: Drivers of active innovation resistance. Source: adapted from Talke and Heidenreich (2014)
3.2.1.1 Functional Barriers
According to Ram and Sheth (1989), most significant is the incompatibility of innovations with consumers established routines and usual lifestyles, summarised as usage barriers. With regard to shared mobility services, the availability of mobility options is mentioned to affect consumers’ evaluation of usage habits (Machado et al. 2018). If consumers have easy access to shared mobility services, they perceive a minor change in their daily lives and no disadvantage compared to their previous routines. Recent studies investigating service innovations also emphasise the concept of complexity in connection with this barrier, with regard to both understanding and knowing how to use innovation (Laukkanen, 2016; Mani and Chouk, 2018). Complexity is understood as “the perceived cognitive effort made by the
consumer in order to use [an innovation]” (Mani and Chouk, 2018, p. 790). The perception of the complexity of shared mobility services is also affected by a major change in consumer driving and fuelling behaviour, for instance, due to the habituation to electric vehicles (Belz, 1999; Byrne and Polonsky, 2001). If consumers are not willing to put in enough effort to understand the idea behind an electric carsharing service or how to drive electric cars, they consequently perceive it as too complex and maintain their usual means of transportation and established habits and lifestyles (Ram, 1987; Mani and Chouk, 2018).
The value barrier entails the relative advantages of the innovation compared to the substituted product/service, based on the perceived cost-benefit-ratio (Molesworth and Suortti, 2002;
Antioco and Kleijnen, 2010). If an innovation fails to provide a relative advantage, consumers are hindered from adopting it (Ram and Sheth, 1989; Laukkanen, 2016). A study by Claudy et al. (2015) investigating the significance of each barrier, indicates that the value barrier has the biggest effect on adoption, which is also confirmed by Joachim et al. (2018). In addition, the perceived price is specifically mentioned by some researchers. If consumers perceive that the acknowledged benefits of innovation do not justify a higher price compared to the precursor, they are hesitating to adopt the innovation (Laukkanen, 2016; Mani and Chouk, 2018).
However, a study by Martinez and Viegas (2017) points out the superiority of private car ownership compared to shared mobility solutions, with regard to comfort and flexibility besides the previously mentioned aspect of availability. Therefore, if consumers weigh these aspects higher than the absolute costs for transportation, they perceive the price for a shared mobility alternative offer being too high as compared to driving their own vehicle.
It is anchored in the nature of innovations to be associated with uncertainty and unpredictable side effects, which is the foundation for the risk barrier (Ram and Sheth, 1989; Antioco and Kleijnen, 2010; Laukkanen, 2016). In the frame of this study, the risk barrier will be discussed in the context of functional, social, financial and security risk (Kleijnen et al. 2009; Antioco and Kleijnen, 2010). Functional risks capture doubts towards the anticipated performance of an innovation. If consumers are not able to assess the performance of a new service prior to testing it or question the correct functioning, high levels of uncertainty arise and they reject the innovation (Antioco and Kleijnen, 2010; Claudy et al. 2015). An example for perceived functional risk is consumers’ concerns about a limited usage range with the use of electric cars since they are concerned about the sufficient availability of charging facilities and compare the range to fuel-driven cars (Egbue, Long and Samaranayake, 2017). Therefore, if shared mobility operators integrate electric vehicles, consumers compare the functionality to their previous means of transportation. Financial risk describes consumers perception that they might receive a bad quality in relation to the paid price (Talke and Heidenreich, 2014). In addition, consumers are prone to be hesitant about buying innovative products and services, even if they recognise other advantages of innovation (Song and Chintagunta, 2003; Antioco and Kleijnen, 2010).
Social risk stands for consumers estimation of how family, friends or other acquaintances disapprove or accept the adoption of an innovation. If actors within the social environment condemn the use of innovation, consumers might reject the innovation as a consequence of fearing social exclusion (Ram and Sheth, 1989; Stone and Grønhaug, 1993; Kleijnen et al.
2009). With regards to internet-connected innovations, the fear to lose control over confidential information has been argued to be another motivation for consumers to refuse innovations, captured as a perceived security risk (Kleijnen et al. 2009; Mani and Chouk, 2018). If consumers are afraid about the potential disclosure of private information, they are likely to resist an innovation (Forsythe and Shi, 2003).
3.2.1.2 Psychological Barriers
The first psychological barrier is concerned with the relationship of innovation with socially established traditions and cultural norms (Ram and Sheth, 1989). Besides consumers’
individual routines and habits, consumers also follow norms and values, established within their social environment (Laukkanen, 2016). If consumers are obliged to release themselves from engrained traditions or proven social standards, they might develop an unfavourable attitude towards the innovation and reject it (Claudy et al. 2015). According to Van der Steen et al. (2012), switching means of transportation demands consumers to break free from ingrained cultural behavioural patterns, which is most significant when turning away from driving the own car, since car owners feel a strong relationship to the vehicle. Therefore, shared mobility services need to deliver comparable performance and consumer experience. Another cultural tradition example in connection with online service innovations is consumers perceived need for personal face-to-face interaction in the use of a service (Mani and Chouk, 2018). Therefore, the lack of human contact conflicts with the social understanding of service exchange and might evoke consumers negative attitudes and lead them to resist service innovations.
The second psychological barrier captures if consumers pay attention to negative connotations of the product or service context and transfer them towards their impression of the innovation, which leads to an unfavourable attitude, known as image barrier (Ram and Sheth, 1989;
Kleijnen, 2009). The image barrier can also be a consequence of a perceived mismatch between consumers’ own image and the image of the new product or service (Mani and Chouk, 2018).
Consumers compare image-related innovation-specific associations with the perception of their own identity (Antón, Camarero, and Rodríguez, 2013; Mani and Chouk, 2018). If there is no or little congruence between the self-conception and perceived innovation image, consumers generate unfavourable attitudes. In a study about the motives for carsharing usage, Schaefers (2013) emphasises the intrinsic meaning of consumers driving their own car, which hinders them to adapt to carsharing. However, he argues that the same feeling of identification with the possession of a car can be associated with the feeling of belonging to a community of other users of the shared mobility service.
3.3 Analytical Framework
The following model depicts the simplified course of the origin of an innovation idea until consumers’ reactions towards the final service design and is the framework for analysing the effect of innovation resistance on service design choices prior and post market launch (see figure 2). This study investigates how companies, indifferent of which innovation strategy they follow, recognize if innovation resistance is occurring and how it is considered in either of the three blue-marked stages on the figure below.
Figure 2: Analytical model based on literature review.
Following innovation strategies within the field of design management (Norman, 2005;
Veryzer and Borja de Mozota, 2005; Verganti, 2009; Norman and Verganti, 2014, Zampollo, 2015), companies either generate an innovation idea in interaction with consumers (UCD) or through the imagination of new product or service meanings together with a network of external actors (DDI). Both approaches either design the service directly or with a pilot study or prototype as an intermediate step, where consumers can be involved as a second possible feedback loop for service adaptations, before the service is available on the market with a final design (Robinson et al. 2005; Roth et al. 2010; Chung, 2017; Biroscak et al. 2018).
After the service is launched, consumers evaluate the service offer based on a comparison of innovation-related features with the status quo (Ram and Sheth, 1989; Kleijnen et al. 2009;
Talke and Heidenreich, 2014; Claudy et al. 2015). If the innovation is considered beneficial, consumers adopt it, which is not further considered in the frame of this study. In contrast, this study will explore if the status quo is perceived to be superior, consumers develop functional and psychological barriers towards the innovation. This can cause the development of a negative consumer attitude and consequently resistance towards the new service and this study want to explore whether or not companies consider this when designing the service.
The model involves the effect of potential acknowledged innovation resistance on the design process, at three stages where crucial design choices are made, illustrated by the blue arrows.
Firstly, in the case of a user-centered innovation strategy, consumer needs are an essential part of the generation of an innovation idea. With their current situation in mind, consumers evaluate innovation ideas in regard to the required changes of daily routines, personal beliefs and cultural norms (Kleijnen et al. 2009; Claudy et al. 2015). Since DDI strategies deliberately do not listen to consumer needs in the initial idea generation stage, potential innovation resistance is not predicted to affect the development of an innovation idea in that case according to theory.
Secondly, regardless, whether a user-centered or design-driven innovation strategy is applied, if the innovation idea is tested with consumers within a pilot study or prototype version, the aforementioned consumer barriers towards innovations influence the consumer evaluation of the pilot version and therefore have an effect on the inclusion and adaptation of specific design features prior to the final launch of the service design. The blue arrow explains the possible acknowledgement from companies of innovation resistance.
Lastly, as previously mentioned, if the barriers towards the innovation outweigh the perceived benefits, the consumer will stay with the status quo. Whether using a user-centered or design- driven approach, companies’ primary aim is to fulfil user demands (Maguire, 2001; Norman, 2005; Veryzer and Borja de Mozota, 2005). Therefore, the model explores if companies consider consumers rejection to an innovation after the launch of the service and adapt the service design according to consumer feedback in order to fulfil unmet needs.
4. Methodology
This section describes how the research was conducted, how and why the participants were selected and how the data was analysed. The chapter ends with a discussion in relation to chosen methods.
4.1 Research Approach
The purpose of this study was to investigate how companies perceive innovation resistance and how it is reflected in the service design. In order to explore this, an abductive approach was applied to be able go back and forth between theory and empirics (Dubois and Gadde, 2002).
An abductive research approach was considered necessary for two reasons. Firstly, the two research areas were previously unrelated and secondly the field of innovation resistance was predominantly focused on a consumer perspective. The researchers first looked into the field of innovation resistance to understand consumers’ reasons to develop a negative attitude towards innovations. Since this study adopts a company perspective, the field of design management was selected as a second literature area to reflect organisational decision making concerned with innovation and design strategies. After the empirical data collection, the researchers went back to theory by searching literature which touches upon innovation resistance in the context of shared mobility and to establish a theoretical connection to concepts that emerged during the interviews. In the case of new emerging questions, the participants were contacted again to gain a holistic understanding of the phenomenon of interest.
4.2 Research Strategy
A qualitative approach was chosen to obtain a deep understanding of the organisational stance on innovation resistance. Since innovation resistance is a multifaceted phenomenon and occurs at different places within organisations, talking to company representatives helped the researchers to view the consideration of innovation resistance through the eyes of the participants in their real work context, as indicated by Bryman and Bell (2015). This way this study was able to explore the complex interrelationship of consumer barriers causing innovation resistance and service design, which was facilitated by the possibility to ask the participants open questions and dig deeper, when unclarities arose.
Therefore, semi-structured interviews were chosen as a primary way to collect data. To have a basic framework for the interviews, an interview guide was created, which covered the two research areas design management and innovation resistance. The interview guide can be seen in Appendix 1. The questions were formulated in advance, yet were used with a great deal of leeway in order to gain an understanding as close to the truth as possible and the researchers picked on arising topics by asking additional question, as Ghauri and Grønhaug (2010) and Bryman and Bell (2015) suggest. The questions within the first part of the interview were asked to gain an understanding of a company’s innovation design strategy. The second part of the interview guide was concerned with the different consumer barriers causing innovation resistance and how they were affecting the service design prior and post launch.
Furthermore, complementary data was collected through company websites, internal presentation documents and company reports. These reports were provided by participants in order to confirm the accuracy of the information given by the interviewees and to decrease the possibility of overlooking participants’ biases. Hence, this allows for a triangulation of the data findings, which ensures the validity of the collected data (Blumberg, Cooper and Schindler, 2011; Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill, 2016).
4.3 Selection of Study Objects
The phenomenon of innovation resistance was investigated in the context of shared mobility.
Shared mobility services are understood as an innovative transportation alternative, since they offer consumers a sustainable alternative to private car ownership by providing short-term access to different means of transportation (Machado et al. 2018). Within shared mobility there are 5 different strands. However, due to limited availability and accessibility in the countries chosen for the data collection, the two strands personal vehicle sharing and on demand ride service were not explored in the context of this study. For a detailed description of these two types of shared mobility, the authors refer to Machado et al. (2018). The three relevant strands of shared mobility in this study are carsharing, bike sharing and ridesharing. To contact suitable companies, the researchers set two criteria: Firstly, companies were trackable online and the service was offered either through an app or website. Secondly, companies had launched their service prior to the empirical data collection and are still active on either the Swedish or German market. As a result, the researchers interviewed representatives of seven companies, who offer either their own shared mobility service or a multimodal platform of different shared mobility options. A short description of each company together with a diagram portraying their mobility services can be found in Appendix 2.
4.3.1 Selection of Participants
To find employees that are able to provide deep insights, the identified companies’ websites were scanned for suitable job titles, such as “business developer” or “operations manager”.
With the help of these employees, the right participants for this study were to chosen to get a deeper understanding of where and how resistance is acknowledged. This can also be referred to as the “snowball” approach (Bryman and Bell, 2015). If the participants were involved in either the early innovation stages or the adaptation the service design post launch or both, the interview was continued with questions about how the companies perceive the different barriers causing innovation resistance and how they were affecting the service design prior and post launch. Otherwise, the researchers conducted additional interviews with a second representative of the same company to gain profound insights into the handling of innovation resistance. In addition, secondary interviews also allowed for verification of the given answers by the first interviewee, which minimised the researchers bias to look at presumed places for answers. Additional interviews were made with UbiGo and Company X1. An exact number of
1 “Company X” is a pseudonym for a company, which did not want to be named within this thesis.
interviews were not specified from the beginning, instead, the researchers determined to stop after ten interviews, as no additional information emerged in connection with the theoretical background of the study, which is defined as theoretical saturation (Bryman and Bell, 2015).
After transcribing and analysing all the interviews, additional questions were sent to five participants. The follow-up questions were based on participants’ statements, which touched upon interesting aspects in relation to the understanding of innovation resistance in the design.
All participants are listed in Appendix 3.
4.3.2 Pre-Study
Based on the course of the first two conducted interviews, the initial interview guide as revised, which lead to the exclusion of some original questions in the first part of the interview and addition of questions concerning the second part about innovation resistance and the effect on design prior and post launch. The researchers are aware that this revision endangers the comparability of the results, however, the adjustment of some questions in order to fulfil the aim of this study enables precise and reliable results. Since the themes are not changed and only a few questions are skipped, added or adjusted, the comparability is not considered to be jeopardized.
4.4 Data Analysis
For the analysis of the collected data, this study used the explanation building logic technique (Yin, 2014). The analysis process was made several times and analysed both single findings and compares across the seven cases. All data was transcribed and summarized with the theoretical background of the two different design management approaches in mind, according to the different innovation resistance barriers and in relation to prior and post market launch.
This is done in order to find similarities and differences between the ten participants’ views on the role of innovation resistance in design choices. The analysis was made in two steps: Firstly, the origin of the service design was analysed and secondly, the awareness of the different barriers of innovation resistance and regarding service design changes was examined. Since existing theory on design management and innovation resistance helped us to formulate the analytical framework for this study, these theoretical propositions were also used according to the analytical model and to generate the themes for the interview guide, which were utilised as a structure for the presentation of findings and directed the data analysis, as suggested by Saunders et al. (2016).
4.5 Operationalization
Since the aim of this study was to explore how companies consider potential innovation resistance in their service design, the researchers created an interview guide consisting of two separate parts. Appendix 4 shows example questions for the themes of both parts, which were developed based on the literature review and derived analytical framework. The three themes within the first part covered the design innovation stages: idea generation, idea selection and concept generation. These themes were chosen in order to achieve an understanding of the
specific development process of each company, what role consumers played and, if a company followed a design-driven or user-centered strategy (Norman, 2005; Verganti, 2008, Verganti and Norman, 2014). The second part covered the five different consumer barriers towards innovations, which each constituted one theme: usage barrier, value barrier, risk barrier, tradition and norm barrier, and image barrier (Ram and Sheth, 1989; Antioco and Kleijnen, 2010; Talke and Heidenreich, 2014; Claudy et al. 2015). These themes were chosen to examine how the different companies perceive the potential barriers for consumers to resist innovations, what barriers are considered most critical and what effect they have on the service design post and prior to launch.
4.6 Ethical Considerations
In the frame of this study, invasion of privacy and lack of consent are potential ethical issues to consider (Bryman and Bell, 2015). To ensure the respectful treatment of participants, their identity is kept anonymous, hence they are mentioned as “Participant 1” and so forth.
Analogically, all companies had the right to be protected by using a pseudonym instead of the company name. In addition, all documents based on the conducted interviews are only accessed by the researchers, as suggested by Saunders et al. (2016). To avoid lack of consent, all participants were asked for their declaration of consent to record the interviews. Furthermore, the chosen citations to be used to illustrate the findings of this study were also sent to each participant and they were asked for their approval.
4.7 Trustworthiness of Data
Credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability are the four main determinants, which affect the trustworthiness and transparency of a qualitative research project (Bryman and Bell, 2015). To ensure the credibility of this study’s results, that is the accurate theoretical reasoning to analyse data, additional documents, such as company websites and internal company reports, were analysed and in two cases secondary interviews were conducted to confirm the participant’s provided information. In order to enhance transferability, describing the extent to which the findings are generalizable to other social contexts, the researchers chose the two theoretical fields innovation resistance and design management, which are not specified for a specific industry and therefore can be applied to other organisational settings than shared mobility services. Dependability refers to the study’s suitability to be replicated in a similar manner. Since this thesis investigates the role of innovation resistance for shared mobility providers at a precise point of time, the researchers were aware that the replicability of the study’s results at a later time might be limited. However, by disclosing the use of the chosen theories for the development of the analytical framework and explaining the themes of the interview guide in connection with previous research, the researchers enable future studies to apply the same empirical approach.
4.8 Method Discussion
A frequently expressed criticism towards qualitative research is the danger of biases affecting the results of a qualitative study. On the one hand, the researchers’ personal views can affect the depth and trustworthiness of a study’s result, when unexpected aspects in connection with the study’s phenomenon of interest are neglected within the interview and data analysis (Ghauri and Grønhaug, 2010; Bryman and Bell, 2015). To minimise subjectivity to affect the course of the interview, the participants are given enough space to carry the conversation and emphasise aspects, which they consider significant. In addition, five of the interviews were conducted by both researchers, which helped to dig deeper, when participants addressed new aspects.
Regarding the analysis of the interviews, all interviews were transcribed and translated, if the interview was conducted in another language than English. This enabled both researchers to read the transcripts multiple times and make connections to the theoretical concepts. When both researchers were present, the participants were interviewed in English. However, half of the interviews were conducted in Swedish or German language. The researchers were aware that the translation from collected data in a second language into English requires the translator to make-sense of the data based on the personal knowledge and experience and includes socio- cultural specific elements. To ensure the correct translation of participants’ statements, the chosen quotes in English were send to the respective participants by email. Furthermore, half of the interviews were conducted by telephone to secure participants’ convenience. However, telephone interviewing hinders researchers to observe participants’ facial expressions and gesticulations and the respondents might be inclined to end the interview earlier as compared to face-to-face interviews (Bryman and Bell, 2015). Consequently, the researchers asked for consent to contact participants again to ask follow-up questions. Four out the five participants, who were interviewed by phone, were contacted with additional questions.
On the other hand, the interviews can also evoke a “knee-jerk” behaviour of the participants (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007). Meaning that they retrospectively perceive the situation differently and portray it in favour of their self-image or the image of the organisation. This issue is especially relevant, since this study relied on ten participants to investigate the phenomenon of innovation resistance. However, the researchers tried to identify and counteract this behaviour. This was done by asking critical follow-up questions and verifying the participants’ responses by conducting additional interviews with two companies and reviewing additional documents provided by three companies. However, the researchers were aware that due to the fact that the content was provided by the participants themselves, a subjective bias might have still occurred (Bryman and Bell, 2015).
5. Empirical Results
In this section, the study’s findings are structured according to the identified themes of the operationalisation of theory. The three themes of the first part of the interview guide are summarised under the first section called design innovation strategy, since the focus lies on innovation resistance and the regarding five barriers (usage, value, risk, tradition and norm and image barrier), which are each treated as a separate theme.
5.1 Design Innovation Strategy
All companies except for Company X generated their initial innovation idea within their own network. These companies mentioned that the idea originated either from the entrepreneurs directly or as a result of the interaction with different actors within the same sector. In contrast to this, Company X was more focused on doing market research in its initial stages of the innovation design to identify ideas for new services. Furthermore, six out of seven mobility providers involved consumers prior to market launch by letting them test prototype versions or participate in pilot tests. Based on the feedback received, changes to service attributes and design were made.
However, none of the companies chose to ask consumers with a negative stance towards shared mobility services for feedback, neither prior nor post market launch. Some companies excluded these sceptical consumers by setting participation criteria, such as the previous use of a similar mobility service or an open attitude or interest towards the service. In addition, most of the companies stated that the participating consumers are early adopters, who are fond of the idea of the specific mobility service or are familiar with similar technologies and mobility solutions.
The reasons to not actively involve sceptical consumers vary. All participants except moovel expressed that negative attitudes towards shared mobility services will shrink in the course of an increasing societal acceptance of the sharing economy. SmartResenär believes that early users help to convince others by sharing their experience and inspiring them to also use the mobility service. However only SmartResenär commented on the possible effect by changing the service based on existing customers to enhance their satisfaction, but not to convince critical consumers.
5.2 Usage Barrier
All participants realised a need for a major change in consumers’ lifestyle with the use of shared mobility services. Car owners were especially emphasised, as they struggle the most with the disruption of their familiar routines. Hence, two companies paid attention to consumers mobility habits after coming up with the innovation idea by deeply investigating what requirements consumers have for their mobility and what functions a car fulfils for the whole household. Based on the insights, they created the service design with the different demands in mind.
UbiGo understood from consumer observation and analysis prior to market launch, that the service has to be available to an entire household, which is why they decided to base their service design on a subscription model for each household, illustrated by the following quote:
"And, the trick is then to combine all of them and make them easily accessible for a subscription for the entire household, all users. And everyone in the household then has the app."
Besides this, six out of seven companies mentioned that availability plays a major role in consumers choice of using their own car. Half of the companies stated that availability is already a key determinant of their service design in the initial design stages. For instance, in order to provide availability to its consumers, moovel fundamentally decided to offer a platform of different shared services, whereas Aimo based the whole service concept on a free-floating carsharing system to secure easy access for the customers. In general, post market launch, the majority of the companies enhanced their service by either incorporating more mobility options within their apps or extend their geographical area of use as a reaction to consumers’ demand for availability.
Six out of seven companies stressed the need for easy usability of their service at multiple times throughout the interviews. In addition, both Move About and Aimo emphasised that their operation with electric cars causes insecurity for some consumers, who are nervous about driving electric vehicles. All companies repeatedly expressed the need for the service to be easy to use and understand. Nonetheless, none of the participants pointed out service features, which were specifically integrated to minimise complexity for the consumer, prior to market launch. In contrast, post market launch almost all companies adapt the service design to make it as comprehensible as possible. However, the strategies on how to decide which features to integrate or optimise differ. Four companies were in active dialogue with existing customers or observe their in-app behaviour in order to counteract usage issues with new or revised service features. Participant 4 from SmartResenär highlights the importance of real customer feedback for service enhancement by paying attention to issues such as:
“How do they [consumers] want this kind of service? As a product or as a user interface? As a tool?
What are the things, that are cumbersome, when they go to buy tickets, what can we do to ease that experience [...]"
The remaining two companies decided to change the service based on what they perceive themselves to make the service less complex for the consumer. Only Company X did not change the service design to decrease complexity, but instead focused on marketing strategies to convince consumers of the convenient use of the ridesharing service.
5.3 Value Barrier
All participants seem to put a lot of emphasis on the cheaper price of the service in comparison to the costs of owning a car, both in marketing campaigns and in their design decisions. Prior to the launch of their service, UbiGo designed their current payment model in co-design with customers. Instead of a single ticket, they decided on a 24-hour plan for public services. In addition, a subscription model for the whole household was identified as the most suitable one, where any unused sums or hours are transferred to the next month. However, six out of seven companies were aware that the service price might not exclusively be the highest priority for consumers. In addition, they pointed out the intention to add more services into their app in order to provide more value for the customer, besides economic benefits. The comfort and flexibility of having a car is recognised to have a large impact on consumers’ decision making.
Participant 5 from EC2B is aware that consumers’ need for flexibility will have to change in order to be willing to use the service:
" Of course, they [consumers]can feel maybe that they lose a bit of their flexibility without having their cars [...] To use EC2B in some cases, you have to make some planning in advance, maybe you
have to book the car in advance to make sure you have it when you need it."
Company X that offers a ridesharing service, where consumers commute with other travellers having overlapping paths and destinations. From their own initiative, they developed the algorithm to not make any noticeable detours on the expected route. Thereby, as a passenger, you are not affected by any perceptible detours to pick up others and all passenger are picked up by the driver at the nearest street corner that fits the route. Company X also added in spacious vehicles in their offers to guarantee consumers need for comfort.
Post the launch of their service, UbiGo continuously added new features with the help from their consumers. One of their customers suggested a feature that made it possible to pause the service for a shorter period of time, which was later on implemented. Moovel expressed that they also further developed their service with the feedback from customers. They did not base it solely on consumer insights. Instead, a small amount of different booking and payment processes were developed within the boundaries of the organisation and as a second step tested and evaluated by potential customers.
5.4 Risk Barrier
Consumers fear of being excluded from their social surroundings when adopting a new service was not acknowledged by the majority of the participants. Two companies were aware of the influence of consumers’ interaction with their social environment on their own attitude towards new services. Nevertheless, both companies did not decide to adapt the service based on consumers' relationship to the social environment.
With regards to customers’ personal information being kept confidential, three out of seven companies saw consumers’ concerns about revealing personal information online generally as a reason for consumers to not adopt to mobility service offers. However, none of the companies reflect their awareness of security concerns in their service design. On the contrary, in moovel's case security concerns were considered to encourage consumers to use moovel's app, as they only have to disclose private information in one app instead of doing it within multiple mobility apps, as illustrated by the following quote:
“If you think more towards privacy and related issues, people are getting more and more critical. And I think there are now relatively many who prefer it if they only have to enter their data once as if they
have to do it with different apps. “
Therefore, moovel did not make any service design changes based on these privacy concerns.
Paradoxically, UbiGo switched from extensive contracts in paper form to online registration post launch. The aim was to make the initial step to enrol for the service easier for the customer, since they observed that some consumers signed up, but then did not use the app at all or right away due to the long process of contractual signing.
All companies were aware that proper functioning is the basis for a positive consumer attitude, however, four of them have realised that some consumers might have a negative stance towards the performance without having actually used it. Move About ensured that one of their main focuses was the operational function of all cars and the app. Participant 9 pointed out that there is no “down-time”, meaning that there should not be a time where MoveAbout is out of service.
Both Aimo and moovel involved consumers to assure technical functionality by fixing programming and usability errors. However, the difference is that Aimo did it through a beta- test version prior to launch, whereas moovel first launched the service and then optimised it bit by bit, based on consumers trial of prototypes for single processes.
Most of the companies argued that using their mobility service provides economic benefits for consumers compared to driving their own car. However, as a result of pilot tests together with consumers, UbiGo discovered that consumers are hesitant to use the service, if they are afraid of a financial disadvantage due to long-term contractual periods. As a result, the company decided to design the terms with the option to terminate the use of the service on short notice.
On the other hand, Aimo realized that some users are reluctant to use a carsharing service, because of the possible financial setbacks that could arise in case of an accident. As a result of this, the company decided to integrate the option for a lower deductible against a small surcharge in their insurance policy. Participant 6 from Aimo explained:
“We will hopefully soon launch a service that you can for some kind of money, you will buy a lower deductible. That I think will be really good for customers, not used to drive cars a lot maybe."
