Consumer-Perceived Responsible Innovation: Scale Development and Its Influence on Adoption and Anticonsumption

Abstract

Responsible innovation (RI) seeks to align innovation processes with societal values and ethical principles. Understanding how consumers perceive RI is crucial, as innovation failures often arise from mismatches between managerial intentions and consumer expectations. This paper develops and validates a novel scale to measure consumer perception of responsible innovation (CPRI) through a multistep process grounded in the AIRR framework, anticipation, inclusion, reflexivity, and responsiveness. First, an initial pool of 53 items was generated from multiple sources, including academic literature, existing scales, qualitative interviews, and AI-assisted item generation. Second, expert evaluations refined this item pool. Third, a quantitative prestudy (N = 242) reduced the scale to 20 items. Study 1 (N = 240) further refined the scale to 16 items and confirmed its factor structure. Study 2 (N = 326) confirmed the scale's robustness. Study 1 and Study 2 demonstrated the scale's predictive power for innovation adoption and how it is embedded within a nomological network. Study 3 (N = 288) further established that CPRI influences anticonsumption behaviors significantly, such as voluntary simplicity-based avoidance and boycotting. Study 4 (N = 214) employed an experimental design to show that the CPRI dimensions are sensitive to manipulations and that CPRI mediates the impact of RI activities. The findings demonstrate reliability and validity of the CPRI scale across diverse innovation contexts, including AI image generator, cultured meat, robotaxis, and emotional support robots.