Trapped in the Status Quo? Cognitive Misperceptions’ Effects on Users’ Resistance to Mandatory Usage

Owing to bounded rational decision-making, professional IS users often tend to resist new ISs by sticking with incumbent systems. Mainly due to misconceptualizations about the concept and methodological hurdles in isolating effects, to date, IS research has failed to provide empirical evidence of a fundamental tenet of the status quo bias (SQB): cognitive misperceptions. We address this gap, developing an experimental approach to show that cognitive misperceptions are a cause of user resistance. We find that a manipulated reference point leads to an SQB that ties users to their incumbent IS: A gain framing leads to a lower conversion propensity. The reverse is true for a loss framing. We contribute to the literature by providing empirical evidence of cognitive misperceptions leading to the SQB. For Managers of implementation projects, if the objective benefits of novel IS are hard to communicate, they should proactively address the SQB so as to forestall user resistance