Construct · 6 fields · 9 citations
One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.
● jingle · one name, six constructs Nearest construct by meaningstatus quo biascompare the meaningsEvery construct on the map is compared with every other by the meaning of its definitions, and the closest one is surfaced here. The nearest construct to inertia is status quo bias.
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The property of a body by which it keeps its state of rest or uniform straight-line motion unless a force acts on it. Newton's first law states it and his second quantifies it: mass is the measure of inertia, the constant that converts force into acceleration. For rotation the analogue is the moment of inertia, which depends on how mass is distributed about the axis, so a spinning skater speeds up by pulling her arms in. Inertia is not a tendency to stay still. A body in motion is exactly as inert as one at rest.[1][2]
The condition in which an organisation's core structure changes more slowly than the environment it is selected by. Hannan and Freeman fixed the meaning in 1984 and turned it inside out: inertia is not a failure but a consequence of selection, because environments favour organisations that are reliable and accountable, and reliability requires reproducible structure. High inertia is the price of the very properties that keep a firm alive. The unit is the population of organisations, and the mechanism is selection rather than choice.[3]
Repeat buying that continues without positive attitude toward the brand, the customer stays because leaving is more trouble than it is worth, not because they prefer what they have. Bawa modelled it in 1990 as a tendency in brand-choice data opposite to variety seeking: the probability of rebuying rises with the run of past purchases. Colgate and Lang found in 2001 that inertia and switching barriers explained why dissatisfied bank customers stayed put. It is loyalty with the attitude removed, and the field's own term for it is spurious loyalty.[4][5]
A user's attachment to, and persistence in using, an incumbent system even when better alternatives or incentives to switch exist. Polites and Karahanna fixed the construct in 2012 with three facets: behaviour-based (I use it because I always have), cognition-based (I use it though I know it is not the best way), and affect-based (I use it because I like it). Inertia is the mechanism through which incumbent-system habit and switching costs suppress intention to adopt something new. What distinguishes it from habit is that inertia is conscious; a user can report it.[6]
The disproportionate tendency to stay with the current state or the option that requires no action. Samuelson and Zeckhauser named it status quo bias in 1988 and showed it in experiments and in health-plan choices; Madrian and Shea showed its size in 2001, when switching a 401(k) plan from opt-in to automatic enrolment raised participation dramatically and left most employees at the default contribution rate and fund. Inertia here is a property of a decision, not a person, and its lever is the default. Rational choice predicts nothing about it, which is why it counts as a bias.[7][8]
The persistence of a belief after the evidence that produced it has been discredited. Anderson, Lepper and Ross showed in 1980 that people who had built an explanation for a fictitious correlation kept believing in it after being told the data were invented; the explanation, once constructed, carried the belief on its own. Strategy researchers borrowed the phrase cognitive inertia for managers' mental models of a market lagging behind the market itself. The unit is a belief, and the force it resists is disconfirming information.[9]
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