Embracing or Resisting the Evolution of Innovation Ecosystem: Understanding Consumers’ Asymmetric Behaviors through Perceived Synergy and Goal Progress

The iteration from 4G to 5G technology has led to the long-term coexistence and transition of the two mobile communication systems, which can be regarded as an evolutionary innovation ecosystem. Due to the inseparable utility when deciding whether to upgrade or degrade the Mobile Data Service (MDS), we capture the necessary interactions between consumer and components within the ecosystem, aiming to measure the synergy empowered by using MDS. To map the macro-level evolutionary progress into the micro-level responses, we leverage the construct of perceived goal progress to explore how the decision-making could be reshaped by relevant social learning. Based on comparative studies through survey method, some asymmetric evidence indicates that the main and moderating effects of perceived goal progress are different for 4G and 5G users. The macro-level information tends to reinforce 5G users’ perceived synergy empowered by MDS in a less direct path compared to 4G users. Theoretically，this paper inherits the structure of innovation ecosystem to develop a consumer-specific perspective, which could be inspiring to both the organizational study about demand-side value-creation mechanism and the behavioral research about the adoption and diffusion of information technology. Practically, this paper explores consumers’ asymmetric behaviors influenced by interactions with ecosystem, shedding light on the importance of synergistic promotion of a new technology generation.