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Abstract
There is a trend towards private customers increasingly renting software, rather than purchasing it. However, even if the rental model appears promising for software vendors so far, we believe that there are still challenges to overcome. Indeed, we assume that rented software has a serious disadvantage compared to purchased software with regard to private customer’s psychological ownership (PO). In this paper, we draw from three lines of argumentation to substantiate this hypothesis regarding private customers’ different degrees of PO for rented and purchased software. Our empirical study suggests that rented software cause customers to feel a lower degree of PO compared to customers using purchased software. Since PO is known to be an important driver of customers’ behaviors and feelings such as their willingness to pay or their loyalty, these findings suggest that PO might impact the success of rental software models.
Recommended Citation
Weitzel, Dirk; Ernst, Claus-Peter H.; and Rothlauf, Franz, "On the Disadvantages of Rented Software with Regard to Psychological Ownership in the Context of Private Customers" (2020). AMCIS 2020 Proceedings. 15.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2020/adv_info_systems_research/adv_info_systems_research/15
On the Disadvantages of Rented Software with Regard to Psychological Ownership in the Context of Private Customers
There is a trend towards private customers increasingly renting software, rather than purchasing it. However, even if the rental model appears promising for software vendors so far, we believe that there are still challenges to overcome. Indeed, we assume that rented software has a serious disadvantage compared to purchased software with regard to private customer’s psychological ownership (PO). In this paper, we draw from three lines of argumentation to substantiate this hypothesis regarding private customers’ different degrees of PO for rented and purchased software. Our empirical study suggests that rented software cause customers to feel a lower degree of PO compared to customers using purchased software. Since PO is known to be an important driver of customers’ behaviors and feelings such as their willingness to pay or their loyalty, these findings suggest that PO might impact the success of rental software models.
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