The thrust and drag forces affecting norm violation in live streaming eCommerce

Abstract

Norm violation, in the form of buyers failing to confirm and pay for orders lodged, increases costs for sellers in the live streaming online transaction context in which most sellers are small brands or customer-to-customer sellers. Attempting to violate norm causes cognitive dissonance and consumers may alter their cognition or avoid behavior to reduce negative feeling caused by inner conflict. The former may be done by rationalizing the focal behavior with neutralization technique (thrust force) and the latter is to avoid behavior through maintaining strong cognition formed by commitment (drag force). In addition, we proposed potential measures for the inhibition and enhancement of such thrust and drag forces, respectively. Furthermore, we explored whether the magnitude of these forces is contingent on buyers’ gender. After collecting survey data from 331 buyers, we found that neutralization strengthens, and commitment weakens norm-violating intention. Furthermore, the impact of neutralization was greater for male buyers, and the impact of normative commitment was greater for female buyers. In addition, the four proposed measures (including descriptive norm, community participation, policy communication, and sanction policy) can effectively reduce neutralization and increase commitment.