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Journal of Business Ethics
Published in: Journal of Business Ethics 2/2022

03-04-2021 | Original Paper

The Impact of Online Platforms’ Revenue Model on Consumers’ Ethical Inferences

Authors: Yi Su, Liyin Jin

Published in: Journal of Business Ethics | Issue 2/2022

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Abstract

This research examines the impact of an online platform’s revenue model on consumers’ ethical inferences of the company. We demonstrate that consumers perceive online platforms that employ the advertising-based revenue model to be less ethical than platforms that employ the service-fee-based revenue model because platforms that adopt the advertising-based revenue model are thought to be less consumer-serving motivated (Study 1). The unfavorable ethical inferences induced by the advertising-based revenue model further lower consumers’ intention to disclose personal information and the intention to generate positive word of mouth for the company (Study 2 and Study 3). We further find that allowing consumers to skip advertisements (Study 4) does not improve the less favorable ethical inferences while using resources for public-service advertisements does (Study 5). These findings advance the understanding of consumers’ ethical inferences regarding business models and provide insights for managers to develop effective strategies to alleviate less favorable ethical inferences.
previous article Assessing Customers' Moral Disengagement from Reciprocity Concerns in Participative Pricing

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Appendix
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Metadata
Title
The Impact of Online Platforms’ Revenue Model on Consumers’ Ethical Inferences
Authors
Yi Su
Liyin Jin
Publication date
03-04-2021
Publisher
Springer Netherlands
Published in
Journal of Business Ethics / Issue 2/2022
Print ISSN: 0167-4544
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0697
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04798-0

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