From Consumer Resistance to Stakeholder Resistance The case of nanotechnology

The development of emerging technologies encounters resistance among heterogeneous actors. A good understanding of that resistance phenomenon may help leaders to take decisions reflecting multiple interests. In particular, a better understanding of tenants of resistance may help defining strategic choices for further responsible developments of emerging technology. However only resistance of some actors, mainly the consumers, and some social movements have been explored. This research proposes to study the resistance of stakeholders, by exploring the nanotech field. Nanotechnology is today the most scientifically and economically promising technology, but it is subject to high controversy. A better understanding of resistance may help designing a responsible path for further developments in the nanotech field. The main contributions of this article are the fundamentals of the resistance phenomena: the concepts of stakeholder resistance and stakeholder orientation are defined. Crossing this with Henriques and Sadorski (1999), we also define a check-list for managers to systematically consider stakeholders in the resistance context