“This is the way ‘I’ create my passwords ...":does the endowment effect deter people from changing the way they create their passwords?

The endowment effect is the term used to describe a phenomenon that manifests as a reluctance to relinquish owned artifacts, even when a viable or better substitute is offered. It has been confirmed by multiple studies when it comes to ownership of physical artifacts. If computer users also "own", and are attached to, their personal security routines, such feelings could conceivably activate the same endowment effect. This would, in turn, lead to their over-estimating the \value" of their existing routines, in terms of the protection they afford, and the risks they mitigate. They might well, as a consequence, not countenance any efforts to persuade them to adopt a more secure routine, because their comparison of pre-existing and proposed new routine is skewed by the activation of the endowment effect.In this paper, we report on an investigation into the possibility that the endowment effect activates when people adopt personal password creation routines. We did indeed find evidence that the endowment effect is likely to be triggered in this context. This constitutes one explanation for the failure of many security awareness drives to improve password strength. We conclude by suggesting directions for future research to confirm our findings, and to investigate the activation of the effect for other security routines

The role of customer engagement behavior in value co-creation: a service system perspective

Recent developments in marketing highlight the blurring of boundaries between firms and customers. The concept of customer engagement aggregates the multiple ways customer behaviors beyond transactions may influence the firm. However, the term is embryonic and academics and practitioners alike lack understanding on how customer engagement contributes to value co-creation. This paper marks the first attempt to conceptualize the role of customer engagement behavior (CEB) in value co-creation within a multi-stakeholder service system. We combine the theoretical perspectives of customer engagement and value co-creation research to the analysis of a rich case study of a public transport service system involving consumers, communities, businesses, and governmental organizations. Our findings describe drivers for CEB, identify four types of CEB, and explore the value outcomes experienced by various stakeholders. This paper proposes that CEB affects value co-creation by virtue of customers&rsquo; diverse resource contributions towards the focal firm and/other stakeholders that modify and/or augment the offering, and/or affect other stakeholders&rsquo; perceptions, preferences, expectations or actions towards the firm or its offering. Through inducing broader resource integration, CEB makes value co-creation a system level process. We offer nine research propositions explicating the connections CEB has to value co-creation by focal customers, the focal firm and other stakeholders. Our research suggests that firms focus greater attention on the resources that customers can contribute, explore the potential to engage diverse stakeholders around a common cause and employ organically emerging systems which provide opportunities for more extensive value co-creation.</p

Sustainable consumption: towards action and impact. : International scientific conference November 6th-8th 2011, Hamburg - European Green Capital 2011, Germany: abstract volume

This volume contains the abstracts of all oral and poster presentations of the international scientific conference „Sustainable Consumption – Towards Action and Impact“ held in Hamburg (Germany) on November 6th-8th 2011. This unique conference aims to promote a comprehensive academic discourse on issues concerning sustainable consumption and brings together scholars from a wide range of academic disciplines. In modern societies, private consumption is a multifaceted and ambivalent phenomenon: it is a ubiquitous social practice and an economic driving force, yet at the same time, its consequences are in conflict with important social and environmental sustainability goals. Finding paths towards “sustainable consumption” has therefore become a major political issue. In order to properly understand the challenge of “sustainable consumption”, identify unsustainable patterns of consumption and bring forward the necessary innovations, a collaborative effort of researchers from different disciplines is needed

“Us” to co-create value and hate “them”: examining the interplay of consumer-brand identification, peer identification, value co-creation among consumers, competitor brand hate and individualism

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand the role of identity-based relationships, customer brand identification and peer identification, in driving customer outcomes including customer experiential hedonic value, social influence and repurchase intentions through the effects on value co-creation among customers and competitor brand hate, while taking into consideration the moderating impact of individualism. Design/methodology/approach The study integrates social identity theory, identity-based marketing perspective and self-construal theory to develop relationships. The data comprises a web-based survey of customers in the USA and was analyzed using structural equation modeling. Findings Customer brand identification and peer identification are drivers of value co-creation among customers, which leads to favorable outcomes at the customer and brand levels. Customer brand identification drives customers to hate competing brands, which, in turn, motivates customers to exert social influence in favor of their brand and to hold additional repurchase intentions. Customer brand identification and peer identification play different roles in motivating customers to co-create value with their fellows and drive customers to feel hatred toward competing brands contingent on customer individualism. Research limitations/implications Customer brand identification and peer identification play different roles in engaging customers in value co-creation with their peers and competing brands have with their rivals. Individualism self-construal holds a dual role when interacting with customer identification. The study fills multiple gaps in the literature by examining additional effects of customer brand identification and peer identification and exploring a relatively new dimension of the value co-creation process, as well as the role of customers in the competition between brands. Practical implications Brands need to view customers who identify with them as socially active customers capable of participating in value co-creation with other customers and engaging in the rivalry faced by the brands. Moreover, brands are required to build and nurture relationships that are based on social identification to encourage customer brand identification and peer identification which results in favorable customer and business outcomes. Originality/value This study examines the effects of two forms of customer identification on value co-creation between customers and competitor brand hate. In addition, it identifies the dual moderating role of customer individualism on the effects of both social identification forms. The study fills multiple gaps in the literature by understanding new aspects of customer identification, value co-creation and brand hate

Conceptualizing customer-company patronizing behavior: Nostalgia-charged experiences driving prosocial behavior and commitment

Purpose of the Study The purpose of this study is to examine customer-company patronization i.e. the phenomenon in which customers decide to voluntarily patronize, support and promote companies. Currently the phenomenon of customer-company patronization is not well understood nor conceptualized in the marketing and consumer research disciplines. Our study aims to extend the current literature of extra-role behaviors by exploring this phenomenon from the perspectives of customers' experiences as well as identity-construction processes, outlining the main motivations for customers' patronizing behavior as well as explore how it occurs in their behavior and choices. In order to better understand the phenomenon, it is essential to explore the different underlying motivations that drive this kind of consumer behavior by analyzing the meanings that customers attach to their patronizing experiences. Research Method The research was conducted using qualitative methods. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were used as a data collection technique for studying consumers' underlying motivations and experiences relating to their patronizing behavior in attempting to understand the real meanings of this kind of committed behavior. Data was analysed through content analysis to gain deeper insights and describe the meanings that patrons hold regarding their patronizing experiences. Findings Customer-company patronization can be conceptualized as being a constructive consumer behavior that contributes to patrons' senses of identities of who they are or who they aspire to be. As such, patronizing represents a behavior that functions as a mechanism to construct one's self-concept. More specifically, the patrons' pursuit for security was identified as the main underlying motivator for patronization behavior. Through various different mechanisms, such as through nostalgic consumption and routinizing visits, the patrons unconsciously strove to maintain stability and identity continuity, especially under the cicumstances of dealing with the life changing events. In a broader sense, nostalgically charged patronizing experience can be seen as a way to cope with the insecurities of the modern world by creating a psychological shelter and meaningfulness into one's life

Inclusive leadership : realizing positive outcomes through belongingness and being valued for uniqueness

We introduce a theoretically-grounded conceptualization of inclusive leadership and present a framework for understanding factors that contribute to and follow from inclusive leadership within work groups. We conceptualize inclusive leadership as a set of positive leader behaviors that facilitate group members perceiving belongingness in the work group while maintaining their uniqueness within the group as they fully contribute to group processes and outcomes. We propose that leader pro-diversity beliefs, humility, and cognitive complexity increase the propensity of inclusive leader behaviors. We identify five categories of inclusive leadership behaviors that facilitate group members' perceptions of inclusion, which in turn lead to member work group identification, psychological empowerment, and behavioral outcomes (creativity, job performance, and reduced turnover) in the pursuit of group goals. This framework provides theoretical grounding for the construct of inclusive leadership while advancing our understanding of how leaders can increase diverse work group effectiveness

Creating New Ventures: A review and research agenda

Creating new ventures is one of the most central topics to entrepreneurship and is a critical step from which many theories of management, organizational behavior, and strategic management build. Therefore, this review and proposed research agenda is not only relevant to entrepreneurship scholars but also other management scholars who wish to challenge some of the implicit assumptions of their current streams of research and extend the boundaries of their current theories to earlier in the organization’s life. Given that the last systematic review of the topic was published 16 years ago, and that the topic has evolved rapidly over this time, an overview and research outlook are long overdue. From our review, we inductively generated ten sub-topics: (1) Lead founder, (2) Founding team, (3) Social relationships, (4) Cognitions, (5) Emergent organizing, (6) New venture strategy, (7) Organizational emergence, (8) New venture legitimacy, (9) Founder exit, and (10) Entrepreneurial environment. These sub-topics are then organized into three major stages of the entrepreneurial process—co-creating, organizing, and performing. Together, the framework provides a cohesive story of the past and a road map for future research on creating new ventures, focusing on the links connecting these sub-topics

Essays on psychological ownership, digital transformation, and sustainability in the retail industry

Scholars emphasize the importance of psychological ownership (i.e., a feeling of possession towards an object independent of legal ownership) for desired behaviors and attitudes in corporate contexts. Psychological ownership is a multi-level phenomenon, meaning that the emotional attachment it implies might pertain to the overall organization as well as to organizational sub-units (e.g., business units). Hitherto, however, there is little empirical evidence on the antecedents, consequences, and vertical spillover effects of psychological ownership. To address this research gap, our paper presents arguments explaining how psychological ownership positively affects organizational performance by diffusing from higher levels of the organization towards lower levels. Furthermore, we suggest that error management culture and high affective commitment within teams, constitutes environmental conditions that let psychological ownership thrive. To test our theorizing, we created a unique dataset combining archival data with two surveys among 1,536 employees and 66 managers of an organization. Our results indicate that psychological ownership towards the business unit indeed enhances performance and mediates the effect of psychological ownership towards the entire organization. Additionally, our findings suggest that error management culture and the increase of affective commitment in teams pose mechanisms that can enhance psychological ownership towards the business unit. With these findings, our study yields important theoretical and practical implications.The success of the ongoing sustainability transformation depends in large parts on both the sustainability in firms’ production of goods and the consumption choices of individuals. While firms and consumers already separately contribute to sustainable development, a key challenge still lies in accelerating collaborative efforts. In this study, we develop a conceptual model to demonstrate how firms can motivate sustainable consumption behavior amongst their customers by involving them in their sustainability activities. In particular, we introduce psychological ownership as the underlying mechanism that explains how customer involvement in sustainability activities translates into changes in individuals’ consumption choices. We further argue that this mechanism depends on the type of sustainability that a firm undertakes, i.e., whether it is embedded in or peripheral to a firm’s core business. Results from two scenario experiments and one field experiment broadly support our theorizing and contribute to management research by showing how firms can go beyond delivering sustainable products and services toward actively shaping consumption behavior. Our results additionally reveal that firms can derive further benefits from customer involvement in embedded sustainability since it incites higher extra-role behavior in the form of feedback-giving than involvement in peripheral sustainability, which firms can exploit to develop their sustainability strategy further.New technologies and enhanced information systems are fueling digital transformation in many industries, including through the creation of new digital interfaces to communicate with and involve customers and suppliers. Information systems and management scholars have emphasized the far-reaching consequences of these endeavors for such areas as strategy, innovation, and entrepreneurship. The success of digital transformation depends on the willingness of the individuals involved, including customers, employees, and suppliers, to embrace these new technologies. Digital transformation is particularly difficult for family firms, as they usually follow conservative strategies, show resistance to change, and face resource restrictions, factors that limit their ability to pursue such substantial change to their business model. However, other factors can help family firms as they seek to transform and thrive: their strong and continuous organizational culture and their sustainable business activities, both of which are rooted in their socioemotional wealth considerations and strong social capital. Drawing on the technology acceptance model, we set out to explore the following research question: How do organizational characteristics of family firms shape the acceptance of new technologies among members within their supply chain? Our grounded theory model contributes to the literature about digital transformation in family firms by linking firm-level strategy to organizational and individual attributes; identifying factors that facilitate or hinder family firms’ digital transformation, such as a culture of innovation and change, as well as social capital embedded in inter- and intra-organizational relationships; and guiding managers of family firms on how to enhance their digital agenda

Designing for Crowdfunding Co-creation – How to Leverage the Potential of Backers for Product Development

Crowdfunding is now established as a valid alternative to conventional methods of financing for star- tups. Unfortunately, to date, research has not investigated how backers can be encouraged to support entrepreneurs beyond funding. The aim of this study is to design and evaluate certain design elements for reward-based crowd- funding platforms that can engage backers in co-creational activities for product development. The study uses a design science research (DSR) approach and the theoretical con- cept of psychological ownership to inform a new design and then experimentally test that design. The results sug- gest that the derived artifacts positively influence co-cre- ational activities in crowdfunding and that feelings of psychological ownership play an important mediating role. The contribution of this research is threefold. First, this paper extends crowdfunding’s application potential from merely a method of financing to a method of value creation with customers for product development. Second, the study advances DSR by applying a new DSR approach that shows whether a design performs as hypothesized by theory. Third, this research allows the exploration of backers’ individual behavior as opposed to their collective behavior

The impact of operant resources on consumer value co-recovery in-role behavior and co-created value

La service-dominant logic (S-D logic) est une approche qui montre l'importance de créer le marketing avec les consommateurs (orienté-processus) et non vers les consommateurs (orienté-output). En outre, la S-D logic souligne l'importance des ressources opérantes (immatérielles, par exemple les compétences) plutôt que les ressources opérandes (matérielles). La contribution la plus importante de la S-D logic est que le consommateur n’y est pas considéré comme un acteur passif mais comme un partenaire actif toujours cocréateur de valeur. La compréhension de ce qui mène à la co-création de valeur et son importance est rarement étudiée. De plus, bien que la S-D logic ait des implications majeures pour toutes les autres activités de marketing, il n’existe que peu de recherches abordant le processus de rétablissement de service après un incident. Plus spécifiquement, les études précédentes ont peu abordé des points tels que ce qui contribue à la co-création de la valeur, le rôle des ressources opérantes, le moment de co-création de la valeur et la motivation des consommateurs à contribuer au processus de rétablissement du service. Cette recherche se propose de répondre à ces questions en étudiant le mécanisme psychologique sous-jacent à la façon dont les ressources opérantes sont utilisées pour le processus de rétablissement de service et sur leurs conditions de co-affectation pour générer une valeur co-créée. Cette thèse soutient que la capacité des consommateurs à intégrer leurs ressources pour co-créer le rétablissement de service les motive à exprimer une volonté plus forte de co-création et les amène à profiter de valeurs hédoniques et utilitaires. Pour tester cette hypothèse, cette thèse étudie lΥimpact de la capacité des consommateurs pour la cocréation de rétablissement de service sur leur participation à ce rétablissement en tenant compte des motivations extrinsèque et intrinsèque en tant que médiateurs. De plus, elle explore le rôle de plusieurs variables modératrices (clarté du rôle, blâme interne, confiance dans la capacité de résolution du fournisseur de services et émotions négatives) pour acquérir une meilleure compréhension de la co-création de rétablissement de service. Les résultats révèlent que seulement la motivation extrinsèque médiatise partiellement la relation entre la capacité des consommateurs pour la co-création et la participation des consommateurs au rétablissement du service. En outre, les résultats démontrent que la participation des consommateurs au rétablissement de service augmente sa valeur utilitaire mais diminue sa valeur hédonique.Service-dominant logic is a mindset in marketing literature which embraces a process orientation rather than an output orientation. Moreover, S-D logic emphasizes the role of operant resources (e.g skills) rather than operand (tangible) resources, which importance is high as there are the source of competitive advantage. The most important contribution of this emerging school of thought is that customers shift from being passive to active, who always co-create value with firms and other stakeholders. Understanding therefore what leads to value co-creation is a major issue and also neglected. Furthermore, although this shift has important implications for all service activities, very little research has focused on service recovery context. What is more it is not yet known what contributes to value co-creation and what is the role of operant resources in a service recovery context, while prior studies have no examined under which circumstances value is co-created and what motivates customers to contribute their resources in the service recovery process. With the goal of addressing these issues, this study focuses on the underlying mechanism of how operant resources are utilized during service recovery and, in turn, under which conditions co-allocation of these resources generates co-created value. It argues that the consumers’ ability to integrate their resources to co-recover from a service failure motivates them to express higher value co-recovery in-role behavior and hence enjoy higher hedonic and utilitarian values. To test this claim, this dissertation investigates the impact of consumers’ ability to co-recover on value co-recovery in-role behavior by taking into account extrinsic and intrinsic motivation as mediators. It also explores the role of several moderating variables (role clarity, internal blame, trust in service provider’s resolution ability, and negative emotions) to gain a deeper understanding of the co-recovery process. The results reveal that only extrinsic motivation partially mediates the relationship between ability to co-recover and value co-recovery in-role behavior. Furthermore, outcomes demonstrate that value co-recovery in-role behavior increases utilitarian value but decreases hedonic value