WHY WE SHARE IT – AN INVESTIGATION ABOUT REASONS FOR ACCOUNT SHARING OF ONLINE CONTENT PROVIDERS

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

To remain competitive in the realm of the Internet, developers of new business models not only have to take into account the behavior of online consumers, but also their misbehavior. Today, companies are faced with special challenges regarding consumer misbehavior, particularly in the segment of online content providers (e.g. Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, etc.), where it has become a common practice to share an account with multiple persons, while only one of them is the rightful owner. Such misbehavior may lead to negative consequences, such as direct and indirect financial performance implications, increased workload to deal with dysfunctional customer behavior, underestimated membership, and a lack of understanding the true customer base (Harris & Raynolds, 2003; Hwang et al., 2009). Therefore this study investigates account sharing as a part of customer misbehavior with a qualitative approach to identify customers’ reasons for account sharing. Thereby this investigation makes meaningful implications for companies (e.g., Netflix) and research alike.