City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 2-2014 Psychological Contracts in Information Exchanges Stanislav Mamonov Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/69 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] Psychological Contracts in Information Exchanges by Stanislav Mamonov A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Business in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2014 PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACTS IN INFORMATION EXCHANGES © 2014 Stanislav Mamonov All Rights Reserved ii PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACTS IN INFORMATION EXCHANGES This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Business in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Marios Koufaris, PhD Date Chair of Examining Committee Joseph Weintrop, PhD Date Executive Officer Raquel Benbunan-Fich, PhD Kristen Shockley, PhD Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACTS IN INFORMATION EXCHANGES Psychological Contracts in Information Exchanges by Stanislav Mamonov Advisor: Marios Koufaris ABSTRACT Information assets continue to grow in importance of contribution to economic activity. Many emergent businesses, including Google, Amazon and Facebook, leverage crowd-sourced information assets as essential pillars supporting their business models. The appropriation of rights to information assets is commonly done through legal contracts. In practice this approach often fails to prevent conflicts between the information contributors and the companies claiming information rights. In research presented here I attempt to understand when and why the conflicts arise. I draw on psychological contract theory and I develop the framework of psychological contracts in information exchanges. I propose that intellectual property and privacy expectancies comprise core domains of psychological contracts in information exchanges. The proposed framework predicts that perceived breach of expectancies in relation to intellectual property rights and/or privacy triggers the affective experience of psychological contract violation characterized by feelings of anger and betrayal which undermines the sustainability of information exchanges. I also develop and evaluate a nomological network of antecedents and consequences associated with perceptions of a psychological contract breach in information exchanges. I investigate the effects of psychological ownership of information and privacy concerns as antecedents of perceived breach of intellectual property rights and privacy respectively. I also evaluate the attitudinal and behavioral adjustments which follow the affective experience of psychological contract violation. I examine the effects of psychological contract violation iv PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACTS IN INFORMATION EXCHANGES on commitment and cynicism attitudes and I use the exit, voice, loyalty and neglect typology to evaluate the behavioral outcomes which result from psychological contract violations. I evaluate the proposed framework in the context of information exchanges on a social networking site by surveying 598 Facebook users. The empirical data support the core hypotheses in proposed framework and indicate that perceptions of a privacy breach and/or an intellectual property breach trigger the affective experience of a psychological contract violation which is most strongly associated with exit intentions. These findings point to the critical role of psychological contracts in influencing the sustainability of information exchanges and offer a novel theoretical lens for examining sustainability of information exchanges across different contexts. v PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACTS IN INFORMATION EXCHANGES Acknowledgements I would like to express my deep gratitude to members of my dissertation committee: Dr. Marios Koufaris, Dr. Raquel Benbunan-Fich and Dr. Kristen Shockley. They provided both the encouragement for the pursuit of my research interests as well as invaluable guidance which was instrumental to the successful completion of the dissertation. I sincerely appreciate the investment of time and effort on their behalf in helping me to develop my academic career. I would also like to thank faculty and staff at Baruch College. Specifically I would like to thank Dr. Joseph Winetrop for his guidance and support throughout my doctoral studies. I would also like to thank Dr. Al Croker, chair of the Department of Statistics and Computer Information Systems for his ever- present positive energy and constructive support. Further, I would like to thank the faculty who led doctoral seminars: Drs. Hammou Elbarmi, Radhika Jain, Thomas Kramer, Karl Lang, Kannan Mohan and Ronald Neath. I would also like to thank members of the Computer Information Systems faculty who have offered support, advice and guidance on many occasions: Drs. Bill Ferns, Linda Friedman, Richard Holowczak, Nanda Kumar and Isak Taksa. I would also like to express my appreciation to Natalie Bartholomew and Leslie De Jesus who helped me navigate the CUNY administrative system. I would also like to thank my fellow doctoral students Chi-Wen Chen, Guido Lang, Tamilla Mavlanova, Sara Moussawi, Alex Pelaez and Jim Samuel for the collaborative discussions of research which sparked many new ideas. Last, but not least, I would like to thank my friends and family for their support. I am grateful to my parents, Dr. Yuri and Galina Mamonov, who have always encouraged intellectual curiosity and provided an unwavering source of emotional support. vi PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACTS IN INFORMATION EXCHANGES Table of Contents Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 1 Literature review and research model development ................................................................................... 6 Information exchanges ............................................................................................................................. 6 Psychological contracts ............................................................................................................................. 9 The content of psychological contracts in information exchanges ........................................................ 15 The impact of psychological ownership on the perceived breach of property rights ............................ 22 The impact of privacy concerns on privacy breach................................................................................. 27 Moderating effects of trust on perceptions of psychological contract breach ...................................... 28 Moderators of progression from the psychological contract breach to the psychological contract violation .................................................................................................................................................. 30 Equity sensitivity ................................................................................................................................. 31 Attitudinal adjustment to psychological contract violations .................................................................. 32 Exchange commitment ....................................................................................................................... 32 Cynicism .............................................................................................................................................. 33 Behavioral outcomes associated with psychological contract violations ............................................... 34 Contextual moderators of the outcomes of psychological contract violations ...................................... 38 Availability of alternatives .................................................................................................................. 39 Lock-ins ............................................................................................................................................... 39 Personality traits moderating the outcomes of psychological contract violations ................................ 40 Locus of control ................................................................................................................................... 40 vii PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTRACTS IN INFORMATION EXCHANGES Methodology ............................................................................................................................................... 44 Context selection .................................................................................................................................... 44 Study design ............................................................................................................................................ 48 Survey instrument ............................................................................................................................... 48 Participants and data collection.......................................................................................................... 50 Results ........................................................................................................................................................