IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ininma/v49y2019icp397-410.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unveiling the interplay between blockchain and loyalty program participation: A qualitative approach based on Bubichain

Author

Listed:
  • Wang, Lu
  • Luo, Xin (Robert)
  • Lee, Frank

Abstract

Keeping motivated customers partaking in point exchange activities is a major challenge in extant loyalty program (LP) studies. In the literature, IT or its applications play a paramount role in enabling firms to offer superior services and consequently deepen the relationships with their customers. Although already applied to augment customer experience and increase participation in practice, how blockchain applications interact with the LP context is still largely unknown in IS research. The objective of this research is to explore how blockchain, as an IT artifact on the rise, influences value creation in a LP context. Drawing on self-determination theory (SDT), this paper considers both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in a LP context guided by SDT regulation: meeting the needs of Economy, Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness, and explores the effects of blockchain application on customers’ motivations, which influence value perception and participative behaviors. By using an exploratory case study of BubiChain in China, we collected data through semi-structured interviews and extracted from the raw data of BubiChain-based loyalty point exchange platform, including real-time, multi-brands, peer-to-peer, and secure, traceable and fraud-proof exchange. We found that these features of blockchain applications not only improve customers’ economic perceived value by meeting their extrinsic motivation but also enhance their social interaction and psychological self-fulfillment value perception by satisfying their intrinsic motivations, thus increasing customers’ experience and participative behaviors. We also synthesized the results and theorized the findings into 4 formal testable propositions, which would offer testable hypotheses for future empirical studies. This paper reveals an innovative breakthrough on SDT theory and LP research, and is an early attempt to analyze how the blockchain is applied to LPs. We endeavor to establish a theoretical overview of how the key features of blockchain-driven point exchange platform influence customers’ motivations, which affect value perception and consequently induce participative behaviors in a loyalty point context.

Suggested Citation

  • Wang, Lu & Luo, Xin (Robert) & Lee, Frank, 2019. "Unveiling the interplay between blockchain and loyalty program participation: A qualitative approach based on Bubichain," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 397-410.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ininma:v:49:y:2019:i:c:p:397-410
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.08.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401218310120
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.08.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chen, R. & Chen, K. & Ou, Carol, 2023. "Facilitating interorganizational trust in strategic alliances by leveraging blockchain-based systems: Case studies of two eastern banks," Other publications TiSEM 85ecf99c-76f0-416e-9604-d, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    2. Koech, Alex Kipkorir & Buyle, Sven & Macário, Rosário, 2023. "Airline brand awareness and perceived quality effect on the attitudes towards frequent-flyer programs and airline brand choice - Moderating effect of frequent-flyer programs," Journal of Air Transport Management, Elsevier, vol. 107(C).
    3. Yi Sun & Shihui Li & Rui Wang, 2023. "Fintech: from budding to explosion - an overview of the current state of research," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 715-755, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ininma:v:49:y:2019:i:c:p:397-410. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-journal-of-information-management .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.