Consumer hacks in the sharing economy

Access-based platforms are complex, interconnected, and dependent on all consumers, which creates significant opportunities for consumer hacks. Drawing from the study of a clothing rental platform, we investigate how consumer hacks impact value creation for the platform and other consumers. We contribute to the literature on access-based consumption and consumer misbehavior by introducing consumer hacks. We highlight the heterogeneity of misbehaving consumers’ motivations, revealing that consumer hacks expand beyond dissatisfied consumers. Moreover, we stress how hacks’ diffusion, mainly via social media, can increase their breadth, speed, and impact on value. Adopting a multi-layered perspective to value creation, we show that consumer hacks can create and destroy value by inducing misalignments between egoistic, mutualistic, and corporate value outcomes. Finally, we evidence the dark side of customer engagement by introducing consumer hacks as a highly active customer engagement with value-destroying potential. Our results also have implications for managing access-based platforms.