A Configurational Analysis of the Causes of Consumer Indirect Misbehaviors in Access-Based Consumption

Abstract

Consumer indirect misbehavior in access-based consumption is a significant challenge for enterprises. The literature is in short of a deep understanding of the antecedent conditions of consumer indirect misbehavior in this context and limited by inconsistent findings, calling for developing a holistic and integrative theoretical framework. This study integrates three commonly used theoretical perspectives in the consumer misbehavior literature (i.e., deterrence, rational decision-making, and ethical decision-making) to present holistic archetypes of consumer indirect misbehavior formation. In accordance with this theoretical objective, we adopted an emerging approach for configurational analysis, i.e., fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), to analyze the complex combinations of six influencing factors. We collected data using a scenario-based field survey of 264 experienced consumers of a popular bike-sharing service in China. The scenarios were developed based on relevant literature and a Delphi study. The fsQCA results reveal multiple configurations for high and low levels of consumer misbehavior intention. Specifically, perceived benefits and moral definition play important roles, while the effect of sanctions is highly dependent on other factors. These results lead us to derive three theoretical propositions for antecedent conditions leading to consumers’ indirect misbehavior intentions in access-based consumption. This study enriches our understanding of the causes of misbehavior and provides novel insights for management practitioners to take appropriate countermeasures.

Appendices

Appendix 1: Prior Studies on Antecedents of Misbehavior-Related Construct in Other Contexts than Access-Based Consumption

Study	Dependent variable	Antecedents	Key findings	Underlying theories
Grasmick and Bursik (1990)	Illegal behavior	Shame, embarrassment, legal sanctions	The threats of shame and legal sanctions significantly impact the intention to commit the three offenses; the effect of embarrassment is not significant	Deterrence theory
Bachman et al. (1992)	Sexual offending	Formal sanctions, informal sanctions, moral beliefs	The deterrent effect of formal sanction threats is contingent on respondents’ moral evaluation of the incident. The impact of informal sanctions is insignificant	Deterrence theory, rational choice theory
Nagin and Paternoster (1993)	Decisions to commit offenses	Lack of self-control, criminal opportunity, situational factors, perceived costs, perceived benefits	The attractiveness of the crime target, ease of committing the crime, and perceptions of the costs and benefits of committing the crime have a significant impact on offending decisions	Rational choice theory, theories of enduring individual differences
Paternoster and Simpson (1996)	Corporate crime	Perceived costs, perceived benefits, perceptions of shame, assessment of the opprobrium of the act, contextual characteristics of the organization	Sanction threats formal and informal), moral evaluations, and organizational factors have a significant impact on the intention of corporate crime	Rational choice theory
Peace et al. (2003)	Piracy intention	Attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, punishment severity, software cost, punishment certainty	Punishment severity, punishment certainty, and software cost have direct effects on the attitude toward software piracy; punishment certainty has a significant impact on perceived behavioral control	Theory of planned behavior, expected utility theory, deterrence theory
Wirtz and Kum (2004)	Cheating Behavior	Potential material gain, repeat purchase intention, level of satisfaction, ease of invoking the guarantee, level of morality, shame, self-monitoring, machiavellianism	Potential material gain does not affect consumer cheating, but repeat purchase intention reduces that tendency. High levels of satisfaction, morality, and self-monitoring reduce cheating	Literature
D'Arcy et al. (2009)	IS Misuse Intention	Perceived certainty of sanctions, perceived severity of sanctions, user awareness	Perceived severity of sanctions is more effective in reducing IS misuse than the certainty of sanctions. The impact of sanction perceptions depends on one’s moral level	General deterrence theory
Chen et al. (2009)	Use Intention of Pirated Software	Attitude toward pirated software, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, moral intensity, and moral judgment	Attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control have positive impacts on the use intention of pirated software. Moral intensity and moral judgment have a joint moderating effect	Theory of planned behavior, moral intensity, and moral judgment
Myyry et al. (2009)	Compliance with the Information Security Policy	Preconventional moral reasoning, conventional moral reasoning, postconventional moral reasoning, openness to change, conservation	Preconventional moral reasoning is positively related to both hypothetical and actual compliance; conventional moral reasoning correlates negatively with compliance	Theory of cognitive moral development, theory of motivational types of values
Siponen et al. (2010)	Software Piracy Intentions	Condemning the condemners, denial of injury, metaphor of the ledger, appeal to higher loyalties, defense of necessity, denial of responsibility, denial of the victim, formal sanctions, shame, moral beliefs	Appeal to higher loyalties, condemnation of the condemners, shame, and moral beliefs have a significant impact on software piracy intentions	Neutralization theory, deterrence theory
Bulgurcu et al. (2010)	Compliance with the IS Policy	Benefit of compliance, cost of compliance, cost of noncompliance, attitude, normative beliefs, self-efficacy	Benefits and costs of compliance have an important impact on attitude. Attitude, normative beliefs, and self-efficacy significantly influence the intention to comply with the IS policy	Rational choice theory, theory of planned behavior
Ogilvie and Stewart (2010)	Intention to engage in plagiarism	Prior behavior, academic self-efficacy, perceived sanctions, perceived benefits, perceived shame	Academic self-efficacy and perceived benefits significantly affect intentions to engage in plagiarism, while perceived Sanctions is insignificant. Academic self-efficacy can moderate the effects of perceived sanctions on intentions to engage in plagiarism	Rational choice theories, perceptual deterrence theory, self-efficacy theory
Kroneberg et al. (2010)	Intention to engage in shoplifting and tax fraud	moral norms, Neutralization, instrumental incentives	Only for respondents who do not feel bound by moral norms, instrumental incentives have significant impacts on the intention to engage in shoplifting and tax fraud. Where norms have been strongly internalized, and in the absence of neutralizations, instrumental incentives are irrelevant	Rational choice theories, the situational action theory
Li et al. (2010)	Intention to comply with internet use policy	Perceived risks detection probability, sanction severity, subjective norms, security risks), perceived benefits, personal norms	Compliance intention is the result of competing influences of perceived benefits, formal sanctions, and security risks. The effect of sanction severity is found to be moderated by personal norms	Rational choice theories
Liao et al. (2010)	Intention to use pirated software	Perceived risks, attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control	Perceived risks, attitude, and perceived behavioral control have significant impacts on software piracy intentions; the effect of subjective norm is insignificant	Theory of planned behavior
Phau and Ng (2010)	Attitude and intention to use pirated software	Value consciousness, integrity, personal gratification, normative and informative susceptibility, ethical beliefs, amount of computer usage, social cost of software piracy	Value consciousness and amount of computer usage are positively related to attitude towards pirated software; integrity has a negative correlation. Ethical beliefs and social costs of software piracy positively impact on intention to use pirated software	Theory of planned behavior
Yoon (2011)	Intention and attitude to digital piracy	Moral obligation, justice, perceived benefit, perceived risk, subjective norm, habit, perceived behavioral control	Moral obligation, justice, attitude, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control influence digital piracy intentions. Perceived benefit, perceived risk, and habit influence digital piracy attitude	Theory of planned behavior, ethics theory
Vance and Siponen (2012)	Intention to Violate IS Security Policy	Formal sanctions, informal sanctions, moral beliefs, perceived benefits	Informal sanctions, moral beliefs, and perceived benefits have significant impacts on IS security policy violations; the effect of formal sanctions is insignificant	Rational choice theory
Goode and Kartas (2012)	Attitude and intention to pirate	Attitude (relative advantage, additional functionality, enjoyment, compatibility, image, software piracy, complexity), subjective norm (family, friends), perceived behavioral control (cost, fear of obsolescence, critical mass, perceived deterrence)	Relative advantage, additional functionality, enjoyment, compatibility, image, software piracy, and complexity have significant impacts on attitude to pirate. Attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control have significant impacts on intention to pirate	Rational choice theory, theory of planned behavior, deterrence theory
D'Arcy and Devaraj (2012)	Misuse of information technology resources intention	Formal sanctions (certainty, severity), informal sanctions (social desirability, pressure, moral beliefs), employment context (virtual status, employment level)	A predisposition toward the need for social approval, moral beliefs, and the threat of formal sanctions regarding the behavior are key determinants of technology misuse	Deterrence theory
Cheng et al. (2013)	IS security policy violation intention	Perceived certainty, perceived severity, social bonds (attachment, commitment, involvement, belief), social pressure (subjective norm, co-worker behavior)	Social bonding, social pressures, and perceived severity of sanctions have significant impacts on IS security policy violations, while perceived certainty of those sanctions is insignificant	Social control theory, deterrence theory
Chan et al. (2013)	Intention to software piracy	Perceived moral intensity, moral recognition, moral judgment, attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control	Perceived moral intensity, moral recognition, moral judgment, attitude, and subjective norm significantly impact software piracy intention; perceived behavioral control is insignificant	Theory of planned behavior, moral intensity, and moral judgment
Koklic et al. (2013)	Intention to pirate	Moral intensity, attitude, perceived risk, involvement	Moral intensity and perceived risk have significant impacts on pirate intentions. Involvement is a moderator between attitudes and pirate intentions	Ethical decision-making theories, attitude–behavior theory
Phau et al. (2014)	Intention to digital piracy	Affect, attitude, moral judgment, self-efficacy, facilitating conditions, habitual conduct, social factors	Social habit, self-efficacy, affect, and attitude have a positive effect on digital piracy intentions, while moral judgment has a negative effect on digital piracy intentions	Theory of planned behavior
Johnston et al. (2015)	IS Security Policy	Sanctioning rhetoric, fear appeal, formal sanction certainty and severity, informal sanction certainty and severity, sanction celerity	Sanctioning rhetoric enhances the effectiveness of a fear appeal, leading to stronger compliance intention. Informal sanction severity/certainty significantly impacts compliance intention; sanction celerity and formal sanction severity/certainty show insignificant effects	Johnston et al. (2015)
Dootson et al. (2016)	Consumer’s deviance threshold	Law & policy, perceived risk, norms, intent, perceived outcomes, victim, moral identity, perceived fairness	Law & policy, perceived risk, norms, intent, perceived outcomes, victim, moral identity, and perceived fairness have important impacts on consumers’ deviance threshold	Neutralization theory, deterrence theory
Arli and Tjiptono (2016)	Attitude and intention to pirate digital products	Moral obligation, perceived benefits, fear of legal Consequences, perceived likelihood of punishment, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control	Consumers’ attitude towards digital piracy strongly influence their intention to pirate digital products; fear of legal consequences and perceived likelihood of punishment are not significant predictors of consumers’ attitude towards digital piracy	Theory of Planned Behavior, Deterrence Theory, Ethics Theory
Ting et al. (2016)	Counterfeit luxury goods purchase intentions	Information susceptibility, normative susceptibility, value consciousness, perceived risk, integrity, status consumption, materialism	Perceived risk, value consciousness, status consumption, and information and normative susceptibility significantly impact counterfeit luxury goods purchase intentions; the effects of integrity and materialism are insignificant	Theory of reasoned action
Silic et al. (2017)	Intentions to violate/use shadow IT	Denial of responsibility, appeal to higher loyalties, defense of necessity, denial of injury, metaphor of the ledger, shame, formal sanctions, informal sanctions	Metaphor of the ledger neutralization technique predicts shadow IT intention and actual shadow IT usage. Neutralizations and deterrence effects influence shame	Neutralization theory, deterrence theory
Currie and Delbosc (2017)	Deliberate and unintentional fare evasion	Honesty attitudes, norms, perceived control, permissive attitudes to evasion, ticketing competence	Honesty attributes, perceived ease of evasion, and permissive attitudes to evasion affect deliberate evasion; honest, ticketing competence, and permissive attitudes affect unintentional evasion	Theory of planned behavior, deterrence theory
Chen et al. (2018a, b, c)	IS security policy compliance intention	Perceived self-efficacy to compliance, perceived sanction severity, perceived descriptive norm, perceived response cost	Sanction severity significantly impacts IS security policy compliance intention mediated by perceived self-efficacy and descriptive norm). No variable moderates the effect of sanction severity on IS security policy compliance intention	General deterrence theory, rational choice theory, protection motivation theory
Brillian et al. (2018)	The misuse of motorcycle ride-sharing applications	Security countermeasures, formal sanction, informal sanction, moral beliefs	Moral beliefs have a significant negative impact on misuse intentions, while the effect of perceived sanction certainty is insignificant. Security countermeasures have a significant positive impact on perceived sanctions and moral beliefs	Deterrence theory
Choi and Song (2018)	IS security policy compliance intention	Commitment, belief, attachment, deterrence	Commitment to organization and belief are positively associated with perceived formal punishment, while attachment is not. Deterrence is positively associated with compliance intention	Social control theory, deterrence theory
Li et al. (2018)	Violation of internet use policy intention	Procedural justice, perceived deterrence, perceived benefits, low self-control	Perceived deterrence and perceived benefits significantly impact violation of internet use policy intention the latter is a more salient predictor than the former). Self-control and procedural justice moderate the cost–benefit calculus	Rational choice theory
Chen et al. (2018a, b, c)	Counterfeit luxury goods purchase intentions	Moral recognition, moral rationalization, moral judgment, moral decoupling, perceived benefit	Perceived benefit and moral judgment affect counterfeit luxury goods purchase intentions significantly; moral rationalization, moral decoupling, and moral recognition are insignificant	Ethical decision-making theories
Safa et al. (2019)	Employees’ information security misbehavior	Deterrence factors, situational crime prevention factors, perceived behavioral control, negative attitude towards misbehavior, subjective norms	Deterrence factors, increased effort, risk, reduced reward, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and attitude significantly prevent information security misbehavior; removing excuses and reducing provocations are insignificant	General deterrence theory, situational crime prevention theory, theory of planned behavior
Bossler (2019)	Intention to commit cyber attacks	Formal sanctions, perceived certainty, perceived severity, perceived informal sanctions, computer skills, and online behavior	Perceived informal sanctions have significant effects on intention to commit cyber attacks, while the effect of formal sanctions is insignificant	Deterrence theory
Hati et al. (2019)	Intention to pirate	Moral obligation, perceived benefit, fear of legal Consequences, perceived likelihood of punishment, attitude towards piracy, subjective norms, self-efficacy, facilitating condition	Moral obligation has a similar influence on the piracy intention of both the no-piracy and piracy groups. Fear of legal consequences and perceived likelihood of punishment have no significant impact on intention to pirate of the two groups	Ethics theory, deterrence theory, theory of planned behavior
Rajab and Eydgahi (2019)	Intentions of compliance with information security policies	Attitudes, awareness, vulnerability, perceived behavioral control, severity of sanctions, certainty of detection celerity of sanctions, severity of risks, self-efficacy, response efficacy, response cost, top management support, peer pressure	Perceived vulnerability, response efficacy, and response cost have a strong positive impact on intentions of compliance with information security policies; severe sanctions, close management supervision, peers’ pressure, and attitudes towards information security have a weak impact	Theory of planned behavior, protection motivation theory, general deterrence theory and organizational theory
Korgaonkar et al. (2020)	Intention to shoplifting	Guardianship capability, shoplifting attitude, motivated offender, perceived behavioral control, subjective norms, suitable targets	Suitable targets, offender motivation, and the absence of capable guardians affect potential offenders’ attitudes, subjective norms, and confidence in their ability to shoplift, which, in turn, all influence the intention to shoplift	The theory of planned behavior and routine activity theory

Appendix 2

Scenario 1 (inconvenient parking): Mobike system has a usage rule that users are not allowed to park bikes in residential communities. Chen is an ordinary working person. After work, Chen usually takes the subway first and then rides a Mobike back home. Chen usually stops the Mobike downstairs when getting home.

Scenario 2 (random parking): Mobike system has a usage rule that bikes should be parked in the specified locations. Chen is an ordinary working person. Chen rides a Mobike to the bus stop when s/he goes to work every morning. Chen often parks the Mobike on the roadside and rushes to the bus when the bus comes.

See Tables

Table 7 Measurement items

7 and

Table 8 Item loadings and cross-loadings

8.