The effect of customer-perceived value when paying for a product with personal data: A real-life experimental study

Abstract

This study delves into consumers’ privacy valuation, modeling the privacy calculus as a mediating construct and aiming to investigate the factors that possibly influence the perceived costs and benefits thereof. A reverse auction was conducted within a real-life experimental field setting, which enabled the researchers to control the consumer decision-making process for customer-perceived value. The results highly support the conceptualization of the cost–benefit calculus as a mediating construct. The findings indicate that consumers distinguish between the positive and negative consequences of personalization when they determine the value of their data. Furthermore, the findings prove the important relationship between customer-perceived value and consumers’ data valuation. The findings show that negative elasticity of the suggested bid amounts to a change in usage intensity. This study substantially enhances the academic understanding of consumers’ decision-making processes when exchanging data for benefits.