Consumers’ adoption of autonomous cars as a personal values-directed behavior

• Personal values function as a sense-making system in autonomous cars’ adoption. • Autonomy motivates both adoption and non-adoption decisions given personal values. • Means-end chains with survey validation effectively assess values-driven adoption. • Bipolar value maps compare innovation adoption and non-adoption drivers. • A one-size-fits-all approach toward promoting autonomous cars is not advised. Autonomous cars are the future of transportation. Manufacturers’ success is, nonetheless, dependent on consumers’ adoption of such innovation. Past studies distinguish between factors contributing to autonomous cars’ adoption and those prompting resistance. Extant evidence does not explain, however, when and why certain factors both facilitate and inhibit adoption. Addressing this gap, we propose a personal values-directed perspective on consumers’ adoption of autonomous cars. Through a means-end chain analysis of 54 laddering interviews and an online survey, we show that personal values function as a sense-making mechanism in innovation adoption decisions. We propose a comprehensive set of consumer-perceived consequences arising from autonomous cars’ attributes, which explain adoption and non-adoption based on personal values. Notably, we show an innovative application of means-end chain analysis based on bipolar hierarchical value maps to investigate the adoption of highly novel innovations. Findings have implications for managers seeking to encourage the adoption of yet-to-be-commercially-launched innovations.