Power Distance Beliefs, Win–Lose Thinking, and Consumer Freeriding

Today’s marketplace allows consumers to freeride firm offerings designed to encourage sales by underpaying or not paying (e.g., free returns, trial offers, free samples). While freeriding may seem a harmless way for some consumers to save on expenses, their cumulative impact on firms can be significant. Delineating the antecedents of consumer freeriding can thus be valuable for marketers. Across eleven studies, including field, observational, online, and lab data, employing varied contexts, we show power distance belief (PDB)—the acceptance of societal hierarchy—as a novel antecedent of consumer freeriding. We show high- (vs. low-) PDB consumers engage more in win-lose thinking—seeing firms, with their relatively higher social standing, gaining at the cost of consumers—which licenses them to freeride firm offerings. Underscoring the role of win-lose thinking, we show this effect is attenuated when firms are not higher and not subject to win-lose thinking. Furthermore, the perception that firms can afford freeriding or are greedy and to be punished does not underlie it. Rather, consistent with high-PDB consumers seeing firms higher in the hierarchy, reminders of punitive action reduce freeriding to baseline levels observed among low-PDB consumers. We discuss substantive implications of our findings for managers. (200 words)