Three reasons hypothesized in the Harvard Business Review:

Reluctance to experiment Even the most brilliant business model innovation idea is just that: an idea. It relies on a lot of assumptions and judgments, and in the absence of a crystal ball, the best tool we have is experiments. But established companies are surprisingly bad at experimenting.

A large retail chain on the brink of bankruptcy refused to follow our advice to experiment with a drastic revision of its labor management practices in a few stores because the CEO was concerned about appearing “indecisive” and “unsure” about the correctness of the decision. The company did eventually go bankrupt.

Sainsbury's pioneered self-service retail in the UK following a trial in one single outlet (in Croydon) in 1950. I guess fear of being called 'indecive' might have killed that initiative, but it seems Alan Sainsbury had more chutzpah than the CEO cited above...

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