Research Article
The Effect of Information Control Rights, Rewards, and Relationship Quality on the Amount and Accuracy of Consumer Self-Disclosure
Korea University
Published: January 2005 · Vol. 34, No. 3 · pp. 715-738
Abstract
The primary purpose of this study is to identify the antecedent conditions for effectively inducing consumers' self-disclosure of information in the relationship between websites and consumers. To this end, this study established information control rights, rewards, and the quality of the website-consumer relationship as antecedent conditions, which are factors controllable by the website. In particular, this study noted that the information companies should elicit from consumers must be of high quality in terms of both quantity and accuracy, and therefore differentiated consumers' self-disclosure behavior into the dimensions of disclosure quantity and accuracy to examine the effects of the antecedent conditions. The results showed that information control rights had a positive effect on both disclosure quantity and accuracy, indicating that providing consumers with information control rights leads to obtaining more and more accurate consumer information. Notably, an interesting finding of this study relates to the effect of rewards: the impact on information disclosure behavior varied depending on the nature of the rewards provided to consumers. Specifically, providing personalized information rewards had a positive effect on both disclosure quantity and accuracy, whereas providing monetary rewards had a positive effect on disclosure quantity but a negative effect on disclosure accuracy. Additionally, the quality of the relationship formed between the website and consumer was found not only to have a positive effect on consumers' self-disclosure quantity but also to moderate the effect of rewards on self-disclosure. In particular, the quality of the relationship was found to mitigate the negative effect of monetary rewards on disclosure accuracy, thereby contributing to ensuring disclosure accuracy.
