Why do people reject technologies - a literature-based discussion of the phenomena "resistance to change" in information systems and managerial psychology research

In 2008, Ford et al. (2008) pointed out for management research, that “it is time to expand our understanding of resistance to change”. Since 1947, when Kurt Lewin discuss the first time the concept of resistance to change within his field theory, managerial psychology researchers have extended, criticized, modified and re-conceptualized the understanding of employees‟ responses to change initiatives. Also information systems research has identified resistance to change as major reason for IT project failures. However, as our analysis in this paper shows, there are a lot of opportunities for IS research to research resistance to IT-induced change. Using a literature review the paper discusses different concepts of resistance to change from managerial psychology and IS research in order to provide a better understanding of resistance to IT-induced change. The paper highlights implications from managerial psychology research to update the understanding of resistance to change in information systems research.