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Three Essays on Understanding Mobile Consumer Behavior: Business Models, Perceptions, and Features
(2016)
For about a decade, consumers have been carrying the Internet in their pockets. The rapid penetration of modern smartphones has meant that more than two-thirds of the people in the West can access and use online resources, anytime and anywhere. Consumers also can communicate and share their consumption experiences instantaneously. Platforms reach users for time-critical events through highly personal communication channels, in the sense that smartphones serve as constant companions. Many mobile applications and their basic services and contents also are available for free. The digital and mobile worlds thus are changing the very means of communication, suggesting the powerful need for marketing research and practice to find the opportunities and meet the challenges of the mobile Internet. In particular, scientific investigations are required to describe new business models in the free e-service industry and the consumer behavior affected by mobile features. This thesis examines these topics in three essays.
Study 1 considers business models that offer their services without charge. Offering services for free is symptomatic of not only mobile apps (90% of all apps are available for free) but the digital economy in general. For companies offering free e-services, this situation raises several important questions, in that, without any access device restrictions, how do customers of free e-services contribute value without paying? What are the nature and dynamics of nonmonetary value contributions by nonpaying customers? With a literature review and interviews with senior executives of free e-service providers, Study 1 presents a comprehensive overview of nonmonetary value contributions in the free e-service sector, including word of mouth, co-production, and network effects. Moreover, adding attention and data into this framework reveals two further aspects that have not been addressed in prior customer value research. By putting the findings in the context of the existing literature on customer value and customer engagement, this study sheds light on the complex processes of value creation in the emerging e-service sector, while advancing marketing and service research in general.
Study 2 deepens the findings from the first study; specifically, the focus is on the way that mobile users co-produce content and how this contribution is perceived by recipients in the network. With field data and a scenario experiment, this study demonstrates that recipients appreciate mobile-generated customer reviews fundamentally differently from other reviews. In particular, they discount the helpfulness of mobile reviews, due to their text-specific content and style particularities. The very fact that a review has been identified as written on a mobile device also lowers recipients’ perceptions of its value. Recipients use information about the device as a source cue to assess their compatibility with the review contribution channel. If they perceive themselves as compatible with the method used to generate the review (mobile or non-mobile), recipients regard the review as more helpful, because they attribute the review to the quality of the reviewed subject. If they perceive it as incompatible though, recipients assume that the review reflects the personal dispositions of the reviewer and discount its helpfulness.
Finally, Study 3 takes up the attention and cross-market network effects in a mobile setting; these were two nonmonetary dimensions identified by Study 1. Platform providers should develop measures to draw the attention of nonpaying customers to the offers of their paying customers. One attention-grabbing mobile-specific feature is push notifications to the device, which provide information about temporally or spatially relevant events. More concretely, Study 3 investigates how mobile push notifications remind users of upcoming deadlines in online auctions and therefore improve late bidding success. Late bidding is a prevalent strategy, in which bidders submit their bids at the very end of an online auction. This research uses field data about an online auction platform to demonstrate that late bidders use these mobile push notifications more frequently than do bidders with different bidding patterns. Within the group of late bidders, the chance to win an auction increases with their use of push notifications. After a mobile push notification, late bidders submit bids through mobile devices but also through non-mobile channels. Less experienced late bidders also benefit from push notifications, which increase their chances of success.
In summary, this dissertation contributes to an enhanced understanding of mobile consumer behavior by using various methods, including qualitative interviews, field observations, and online experiments. From a theoretical perspective, it contributes to current knowledge about nonmonetary costumer value contributions in general and their role in mobile settings in particular. This thesis highlights the role of mobile devices in co-production and perceptions of co-produced content. It also reveals how mobile-specific interactive features, like push notifications, affect late bidding efficiency. Therefore, it specifies the role of mobile devices in cross-market effects, in that they enable the platform to direct the relationship between buyers and sellers. The insights presented herein encourage managers to reevaluate their current practices, think about whether they should label co-produced content as generated through a mobile channel or not, and contemplate whether to develop mobile push notifications as helpful features for users (not as intrusive marketing messages).
Die vorgelegte Dissertationsschrift setzt sich empirisch mit Themen der Lokalen Politischen Ökonomie auseinander. Durch die Analyse bayerischer Kommunaldaten werden kausale Effekte parteipolitischer Machtverhältnisse, kausale Effekte von Parteibanden auf das Zuteilen legaler Renten sowie kausale Effekte steigender Bezahlung auf die Eigenschaften von Lokalpolitikern untersucht.
This work illustrates reform approaches in Africa using an international legal comparative approach. The research uses Tanzania and Senegal as the primary case studies and France, the United Kingdom and Germany as secondary case studies to illustrate how Europe reformed data protection regimes through the transposition of the EU Data Protection Directive of 1995.
Chapter one introduces the work; explaining the forces towards data protection regulations and their basis. Chapter two provides for a ‘back-to-back' comparison in three countries (France, Germany and United Kingdom) against the 1995 Data Protection Directive. The idea behind this chapter is to draw a picture on how the legal culture and the pre-existing notions of the right to privacy inform on data protection legal reforms and determines the nature, contents, context and interpretation of adopted regime for data protection. Eventually, all these aspects affect the nature and extent of protection offered regardless of the substance of the law adopted.
Chapter three gives a narrative explanation of nature and perceptions of the right to privacy in Africa and how this may affect data protection reforms in Africa. In the same disposition, African customary legal systems and practices are explained providing a reader with a picture of the overall nature of African systems that makes up an African legal culture. The overview of African privacy perception and legal system is necessary for assessing the workability of any data protection regime to be adopted in Africa which in effect answers the first research question. The chapter draws its rationale from chapter two. In understanding African perceptions of privacy and the African legal culture, one can be able to predict the content and context of the reforms and maybe how the judiciary might interpret the laws based on local perceptions and supporting systems.
An overview of the African data protection architecture or rather human right architecture is provided in chapter four; ideally to provide a reader with a picture of the enforcement systems in Africa as a continent. This is followed by chapter five discussing the two major legal systems in Africa; the civil law and the common law system. The chapter also illustrates the position of African landscape in relation to legal harmonization/unification. This aspect is considered necessary because data protection regimes are more focused on legal harmonization and hence the question of how well or to what extent Africa as a continent can bring about harmonization in law became inevitable. Eventually, the chapter offers a comparative mirror analysis of the primary case studies, i.e. Senegal and Tanzania. The analysis is made on the reform approach taken, motivation behind the reforms and on the regime erected (this is done through textual analysis of the law and the draft bill respectively).
Chapter six concludes the work by answering research questions based on findings and scrutiny from each chapter. It is concluded that there is a very slim chance for the African States to cling on the cultural defence against the adoption of the Western frameworks for data protection. It is also concluded that, lest Africa becomes an active participant in the global process that informs on data protection challenges and regulations, it faces a danger of becoming a puppet of foreign data protection regulation, which may or may not fit African legal culture. The chapter also illustrates how Africa as a continent and the African States individually have taken up data protection reforms blindly. The motivations for the reforms are vaguely stated and unclear. In the majority of legal instruments, the reforms are not taken as a move towards securing and protecting individual rights rather a purely political move influenced by economic motivations. The reforms are to a large extent, a mere impression to align with global data protection regimes and hence lack the political will to enforce the laws.
An increasing number of companies report that eco-sustainable initiatives have a positive impact on firms’ economic performance and concurrently allow the combination of social and commercial goals by optimizing environmental and economic decisions simultaneously. These initiatives are considered an integral part of organizational sustainability transformations, which are a special case of multilayered, complex organizational change efforts that relate to environmental, organizational, and individual factors. Institutional logics and information systems (IS) have shown to be two important perspectives from which to explore mechanisms and processes central to organizational sustainability transformations. Institutional logics offer a unique perspective to investigate organizational change for sustainability because they provide a new approach to organizational change that incorporates macro structures, culture, and agency to explain how actions are enabled or constrained. It thus allows for insights into the complex and miscellaneous interplay of external and internal determinants that govern organizational transformation processes towards sustainability. By providing insights into institutional changes of practice and behaviors, an institutional logic perspective allows for a detailed analysis of organizational transformations. Within these change processes, IS have shown to be an efficient and pervasive tool to leverage sustainability by integrating human and technological factors. Since IS have become a key resource for the encouragement of organizational sustainability transformations, adopting an IS perspective allows for an understanding of mechanisms and processes that enable IS to foster sustainability in organizations. Thus, this dissertation draws on four studies by investigateing an institutional logic perspective as well as an IS perspective to explore organizational sustainability transformations and facilitate an in-depth understanding of organizational, human, and technological factors that encourage sustainability in organizational transformations.
1. IT-Exposure and Firm Value: We analyze the joint influence of a firm’s information technology (IT)-Exposure and investment behavior on firm value. Estimating a firm’s (partial) IT-Exposure allows for distinguishing between firms with a business model that is challenged by IT above and below market average. Hence, we estimate the annual IT-Exposure of a firm using a 3-factor Fama-French model extended by an IT-proxy. Subsequently, we analyze the relationship with Tobin’s Q in a panel data context, accounting for the relationship between IT-Exposure and investments proxied by R&D as well as CapEx. We use more than 48,000 firm-year observations for firms in the Russell 3000 Index covering the period 1990 to 2018. Although IT-Exposure has a negative impact on firm value, this discount can be overcompensated by up to 2.1 times by sufficient investments through R&D and CapEx, giving a firm with an average Tobin’s Q a premium of 14.8% to 19.2%, while controlling for endogeneity.
2. Corporate Social Responsibility, Risk, and Firm Value: An Unconditional Quantile Regression Approach: This paper examines the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on firm risk, comprising total risk, idiosyncratic risk, and systematic risk, as well as firm value. We focus on analyzing the interrelationships along the entire distribution of the dependent variables, thus estimating an unconditional quantile regression (UQR). The analysis is based on CSR scores from Refinitiv and MSCI, using up to 12,013 firm-year observations over the period 2002 to 2019 for all U.S. companies listed on NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX. UQR reveals strongly heterogeneous effects along the unconditional quantiles of the dependent variables, which are reflected in sign changes, magnitude and significance variations. For CSR we find a risk-reducing as well as value-enhancing effect. When applying fixed effects OLS, we can just partly confirm the risk-reducing and value-enhancing effect of CSR shown in the literature.
3. Heterogenous Effects of Religiosity on Firm Risk and Firm Value: An Unconditional Quantile Regression Approach: This paper examines the impact of religiosity on firm risk, comprising total risk, idiosyncratic risk, and systematic risk, as well as firm value. We focus on analyzing the interrelationships along the entire distribution of the dependent variables, thus estimating an unconditional quantile regression (UQR). The analysis is based on all U.S. companies listed on NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX for the period from 1980 through 2020. UQR reveals strongly heterogeneous effects along the unconditional quantiles of the dependent variables, which are reflected in sign changes, magnitude and significance variations. Overall, the risk-reducing effect of religiosity is more pronounced in the higher quantiles of the distribution. We further observe a value-reducing as well as value-enhancing religiosity effect. When applying fixed effects OLS, we can confirm the risk-reducing and non-existing value effect of religiosity shown in the literature. The robustness of our results is underpinned by a battery of additional tests.
Abstract 1: This paper investigates whether market quality, uncertainty, investor sentiment and attention, and macroeconomic news affect bitcoin price discovery in spot and futures markets. Over the period December 2017 – March 2019, we find significant time variation in the contribution to price discovery of the two markets. Increases in price discovery are mainly driven by relative trading costs and volume, and by uncertainty to a lesser extent. Additionally, medium-sized trades contain most information in terms of price discovery. Finally, higher news-based bitcoin sentiment increases the informational role of the futures market, while attention and macroeconomic news have no impact on price discovery.
Abstract 2: We investigate whether local religious norms affect stock liquidity for U.S. listed companies. Over the period 1997–2020, we find that firms located in more religious areas have higher liquidity, as reflected by lower bid-ask spreads. This result persists after the inclusion of additional controls, such as governance metrics, and further sensitivity and endogeneity analyses. Subsample tests indicate that the impact of religiosity on stock liquidity is particularly evident for firms operating in a poor information environment. We further show that firms located in more religious areas have lower price impact of trades and smaller probability of information-based trading. Overall, our findings are consistent with the notion that religiosity, with its antimanipulative ethos, probably fosters trust in corporate actions and information flows, especially when little is known about the firm. Finally, we conjecture an indirect firm value implication of religiosity through the channel of stock liquidity.
Abstract 3: This study shows that higher physical distance to institutional shareholders is associated with higher stock price crash risk. Since monitoring costs increase with distance, the results are consistent with the monitoring theory of local institutional investors. Cross-sectional analyses show that the effect of proximity on crash risk is more pronounced for firms with weak internal governance structures. The significant relation between distance and crash risk still holds under the implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, however, to a lower extent. Also, the existence of the channel of bad news hoarding is confirmed. Finally, I show that there is heterogeneity in distance-induced monitoring activities of different types of institutions.
During the last few years, the technological progress in collecting, storing and processing a large quantity of data for a reasonable cost has raised serious privacy issues. Privacy concerns many areas, but is especially important in frequently used services like search engines (e.g., Google, Bing, Yahoo!). These services allow users to retrieve relevant content on the Internet by exploiting their personal data. In this context, developing solutions to enable users to use these services in a privacy-preserving way is becoming increasingly important.
In this thesis, we introduce SimAttack an attack against existing protection mechanism to query search engines in a privacy-preserving way. This attack aims at retrieving the original user query. We show with this attack that three representative state-of-the-art solutions do not protect the user privacy in a satisfactory manner.
We therefore develop PEAS a new protection mechanism that better protects the user privacy. This solution leverages two types of protection: hiding the user identity (with a succession of two nodes) and masking users' queries (by combining them with several fake queries). To generate realistic fake queries, PEAS exploits previous queries sent by the users in the system.
Finally, we present mechanisms to identify sensitive queries. Our goal is to adapt existing protection mechanisms to protect sensitive queries only, and thus save user resources (e.g., CPU, RAM). We design two modules to identify sensitive queries. By deploying these modules on real protection mechanisms, we establish empirically that they dramatically improve the performance of the protection mechanisms.
Diskriminierungsverbote unter Privaten: Rechtsdurchsetzung im deutschen und US-amerikanischen Recht
(2015)
Die Arbeit untersucht die Rechtsdurchsetzung von an Private gerichteten Diskriminierungsverboten im deutschen Recht und im US-Bundesrecht. Teil 1 führt in die Fragestellung der Arbeit ein und behandelt rechtssystemübergreifende Grundlagen. Teil 2 stellt den Rahmen des Unionsrechts für nationales Antidiskriminierungsrecht dar. Die Teile 3 und 4 sind der Analyse eines Rechtsfolgensystems gewidmet. Der dritte Teil beschäftigt sich dabei mit der Rechtslage in Deutschland, der vierte Teil mit dem US-Bundesrecht. Teil 5 ist eine vergleichende Analyse deutscher und amerikanischer Konzepte und greift so auf die Teile 3 und 4 zurück. Die Untersuchung geht dabei sowohl grundlegenden Strukturentscheidungen nach (wie z. B. dem fast vollständigen Fehlen kollektiver Rechtsdurchsetzung in Deutschland) als auch der konkreten Ausgestaltung bestimmter Rechtsfolgen im Detail und zeigt Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede auf. Teil 6 abstrahiert von den konkreten nationalen Regelungen und untersucht Rechtsdurchsetzungs- und Rechtsfolgenmodelle für die Verletzung von Diskriminierungsverboten auf ihre Eignung zur Verhaltenssteuerung anhand verschiedener Modelle; dabei wird ein interdisziplinärer Ansatz verfolgt, der insbesondere Erkenntnisse der ökonomischen Analyse des Rechts berücksichtigt. Teil 7 enthält abschließende Bemerkungen.
In study 1 an introduction to the research on moral self-regulation is provided alongside with an explanation of the two manifestations of moral self-regulation: moral licensing and moral cleansing. At the core of the first study is an experiment which was designed to identify moral licensing and cleansing in the domain of honesty. The experiment merges relevant studies from social psychology and experimental economics. It assesses the question if moral self-regulation exists within the domain of honesty or more precisely, if the truth and lies are told in such a way as to balance each other out. After manipulating participants’ moral balances (either positively or negatively), rates of truth-telling are compared to a neutral baseline scenario. Since neither moral licensing nor moral cleansing is observed, the results provide no support to the initial hypothesis that moral self-regulation exists within the domain of honesty.
Study 2 builds on these results and discusses possible reasons for the absence of moral self-regulation. The research on moral hypocrisy and self-concept maintenance are presented and discussed as possible explanations. In order to shed more light on participants’ behavior, a coding procedure is presented that was used on the dataset from study 1. This approach makes it possible to quantify participants’ handwritten stories that resulted from the moral manipulation in study 1 and gain more insights on how truth-telling and lying affect the moral balance. By analyzing (dis)honesty on a more detailed level, results show that participants tend to act consistent to what they revealed about themselves in their stories.
Study 3 links together aspects of moral self-regulation, moral hypocrisy and impression management. The "looting game" is presented which lets participants loot money from a charity box being subject to altruistic punishment from observers. For their punishment decision observers are provided with a history of participants’ past actions. This design allows to assess how misconduct, punishment and the creation of a favorable impression interact and ultimately impact profits. The results indicate that moral cleansing, and not the desire to trick observers, is the reason for manipulation. Participants who loot money from the charity box do not expect to receive less punishment, rather they simply want to present a more favorable picture of themselves. On the other hand, observers fully account for the possibility of manipulation and tend to disregard a manipulated history. The looting game therefore brings the hypothesis into question that impressions are managed and manipulated to increase profits.
Innovate with Crowds. Co-Creation and Idea Evaluation in Internal and External Crowdsourcing.
(2020)
Crowdsourcing seems to be a promising approach for organizations to overcome challenges widely discussed in innovation and organizational research. However, the extent to which an organization can leverage the benefits from crowdsourcing is contingent on which type of crowd is addressed and how crowds are used. Based on unique data from crowdsourcing contests, the dissertation provides insights how to innovate with internal and external crowds in order to utilize their potential for co-creation and idea evaluation.