Gaming the Marketplace: Consumer Opportunism and Beliefs about Societal Hierarchy

Consumers often behave opportunistically, taking more than what fair marketplace exchange warrants (e.g., taking excess samples, returning used items). While each individual transgression may be minor, cumulatively they can undermine firm profitability. Thus, addressing consumer opportunism is an important managerial concern. We identify a novel antecedent of consumer opportunism: consumers’ acceptance of societal hierarchy (i.e., power distance belief [PDB]), including firms’ higher position in it than consumers. Nine studies (plus two supplementary studies) employing archival, correlational, and experimental data provide converging evidence that, in marketplace interactions, this belief evokes a need to feel clever (i.e., to feel smart and knowledgeable vis-à-vis firms), which, in turn, promotes opportunistic behaviors. These behaviors exploit firm policy loopholes, allowing consumers to feel clever without explicitly defying firm authority. Higher-status consumers, who may be accustomed to a position of advantage and consequently less deferential, experience this need more, leading to greater opportunism. Reminders of surveillance reduce opportunism, but brand relationship reminders, paradoxically, license it. This research thus offers novel theoretical insights into consumer opportunism along with substantive managerial implications.