Title
Digital transformation and possession attachment: examining the endowment effect for consumers’ relationships with hedonic and utilitarian digital service technologies
Abstract
A significant body of research has examined the importance of material possession attachment and its influence on consumer behavior. Critical questions, however, remain with regard to the extent to which, and if at all, consumers form instantaneous possession attachment in electronic commerce. In this research, we conducted one quasi-experimental field study and one scenario-based online experiment to examine the endowment effect (EE) for digital services. The current findings demonstrate that consumers become instantaneously attached to and are reluctant to give up digital services once they have obtained them. Two main explanations of the EE in electronic commerce are investigated. Critically, the results show that the psychological processes underlying the effect differ between utilitarian and hedonic digital services. Proprietary feelings towards utilitarian digital services occur due to loss aversion, whereas proprietary feelings towards hedonic digital services reflect the consumer’s conscious self-relatedness to the digital service.
Year
DOI
Venue
2019
10.1007/s10660-018-9309-8
Electronic Commerce Research
Keywords
Field
DocType
Possession, Ownership, Loss aversion, Endowment effect, Digital consumption, Attachment
Loss aversion,Endowment effect,Computer science,Consumer behaviour,Digital transformation,Possession (law),Marketing,Feeling
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
19.0
2
1572-9362
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
1
0.36
11
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Martin P. Fritze110.36
Andreas Eisingerich220.73
Martin Benkenstein340.74