Double-edged Sword of Knowledge Inertia: Overcoming Healthcare Professionals’ Resistance in Innovation Adoption

Healthcare professionals' adoption of innovations is crucial for the success and positive impact of innovations. Realizing the important role of knowledge inertia, this research, adopting social exchange perspectives, investigates its impact at the individual level among healthcare professionals and reveals the mechanisms either mitigating or deteriorating its impact on professionals' adoption of innovations. A survey study involving 337 clinical physicians from two specialized and three comprehensive hospitals reveals a negative impact of learning inertia but a positive impact of experience inertia on their intention to adopt innovations. Perceived organizational support mitigates the positive impact of experience inertia and knowledge potential mitigates the impact of both dimensions of knowledge inertia. By focusing on professionals’ knowledge inertia, we have revealed the distinctive effects and the mechanisms that leverage or mitigate these effects, deepening the understanding of professionals and innovation adoption.