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INTEREST CATEGORY: CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
POSTING TYPE: Calls: Journals

Posted by: Achilleas Boukis

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Special Issue on

“Exploring consumers’ journey from physical ownership to digital assets”

Submission Window 1st June 2024 – 1st August 2024

Guest Editors

• Achilleas Boukis, University of Birmingham, UK
• Nikoletta Theofania Siamagka, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
• Nina Michaelidou, Loughborough University, UK

The rise of immaterial goods and services and immersive experiences along with the expansion of various metaverse platforms are expected to further aggravate the consequences that collaborative consumption brought forward (i.e. moving away from ownership towards accessbased consumption and underutilized asset monetization). The transformation of experiences and consumption brings fundamental changes in the way consumers interact with the digital world as well as paves the way for the transition from physical to digital assets (Yoo et al., 2023).

Digital assets are defined as those entities accessible through a digital device that do not possess physical properties and exist exclusively in the digital space (Koles and Nagy, 2021). Given the lack of real-world physical attributes and applications, digital assets can be viewed as a liminal category between the material and the imaginary world, possessing varied levels of complexity, user control and interactivity, along with meaning and value for customers. Typical examples of digital assets include exploring a travel destination in virtual reality, the digital ownership and usage of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the use of digital avatars in online gaming, and purchases of digital fashion accessories (e.g. Burberry bags).

Digital assets enable consumers have immersive experiences and navigate through digital space; offer digital ownership opportunities for products and services that consumers could not physically own before and can generate increased psychological ownership and digital asset attachment (Fritze et al., 2020; Danckwerts et al., 2019).

Digital assets may also have a direct impact on the real world and affect offline consumption. As consumers begin to assign value to a broad range of intangible products, their need for owning or consuming their physical counterparts might decrease as consumers can experience psychological ownership via the usage of virtual objects (e.g. sale of virtual property, fashion accessories in online games) (Morewedge et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2023). At the same time, digital twins for products (e.g. NFTs) could affect how consumers experience them (Yilmaz et al., 2023).

The rise of digital assets opens up new opportunities for consumers as it democratizes asset monetization, allowing them to monetize their rare physical assets and goods they possess in the digital space (e.g. artwork, content), creating this way digital scarcity (Jenkins et al., 2014; Fritze et al., 2020).

The widespread popularity of various online gaming platforms along with consumers’ increased immersion in digital spaces has paved the way for normalizing a way of living in which consumers utilize avatars and augmented reality apps not only for gaming but also to socialize and consume/use digital goods and services (Hadi et al., 2023; Yoo et al., 2023). As the Metaverse continues to expand, an increasing body of work has begun to investigate the distinctive features of the digital space and consumers’ changing behaviour in it (Barrera and Shuh, 2023; Mogaji et al., 2023).

Despite the aforementioned changes in the ways in which individuals consume and experience consumption, scarce empirical insights exist regarding the dynamic interactions between consumers and digital assets so to understand the potential cross-over between digital and offline experiences. Also, limited research investigates how consumers experience digital assets and how their perceptions of them affect their attitude towards real-world consumption. The aim of this special issue is to delve into consumers’ experience with and perceptions of digital assets. Moreover, we aspire to understand the role of digital assets in virtual consumption and digital spaces (e.g. metaverse) as well as their psychological consequences for consumers’ identity and relationship with brands. In specific, potential papers can investigate how consumers’ attitudes, attachment and (psychological) ownership of or access to digital assets affects their immersive experiences and engagement; provide insights into how consumption of digital assets could affect real-world and offline consumption; explore how the rise of digital ownership affect consumers’ monetization behavior towards physical and digital assets.

Call for Papers Themes of Interest:

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Consumer attitudes towards immaterial ownership.
• Consumer switching behaviour from physical to digital assets.
• Consumer experience when searching, buying and consuming digital assets.
• Drivers and motives for NFT purchases.
• Cross-cultural differences in the perceptions and attitudes of consumers towards digital assets.
• Antecedents of digital asset attachment and psychological distance.
• Dark sides of digital asset consumption.
• Balancing between brands’ physical and digital assets.
• Role of digital assets in consumer identity building and experimentation.
• Effects of psychological ownership on digital consumption.
• Consequences of digital scarcity for consumers and brands.
• Impact of NFTs on consumer brand loyalty and monetization of their relationship with brands.
• Effects of NFTs on consumers’ relationship with brands.
• Inclusivity of consumption via digital ownership.

Submission Criteria: The submissions need to specify how their research contributes to consumer behavior theory and practice.

All manuscripts submitted must not have been published, accepted for publication, or be currently under consideration elsewhere. Manuscripts should be submitted by the JCB author guidelines online at

All submissions should be made via the online submission system

and should be made to the special issue identified on the submission site.

Submission Window: 1st June 2024 -1st August 2024

Special Issue Editors’ Biographies

Achilleas Boukis is an Associate Professor in Marketing at the University of Birmingham. Achilleas received his PhD from Strathclyde University (2014). His interests include branding, blockchain and service interactions in physical and technology-mediated contexts. Achilleas has published his research in academic journals such as Journal of Business Research, Tourism Management, Psychology & Marketing and European Journal of Marketing.

Nikoletta Theofania Siamagka is an Associate Professor in Marketing at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Nikoletta’s research interests cut across the broader areas of international consumer behaviour and consumer–brand relationships. Nikoletta’s research appears in a number of journals, including International Journal of Research in Marketing, Journal of International Marketing, International Marketing Review, Psychology & Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, European Journal of Marketing and Journal of Travel Research.

Nina Michaelidou is Professor of Marketing at Loughborough University Business School, UK. Her research interests are grounded on perceptions, motivations, image and personality in digital and other contexts. Professor Michaelidou’s work appears in high ranked journals such as the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of Travel Research, European Journal of Marketing, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Business Ethics, Psychology and Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, International Marketing Review, and Journal of Advertising Research.

References

Barrera, K. G., & Shah, D. (2023). Marketing in the Metaverse: Conceptual understanding, framework, and research agenda. Journal of Business Research, 155, 113420.

Danckwerts, S., & Kenning, P. (2019). “It’s MY Service, it’s MY Music”: The role of psychological ownership in music streaming consumption. Psychology & Marketing, 36(9), 803-816.

Fritze, M. P., Marchand, A., Eisingerich, A. B., & Benkenstein, M. (2020). Access-based services as substitutes for material possessions: the role of psychological ownership. Journal of Service Research, 23(3), 368-385.

Hadi, R., Melumad, S., & Park, E. S. (2023). The Metaverse: A new digital frontier for consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology.

Jenkins, R., Molesworth, M., & Scullion, R. (2014). The messy social lives of objects: Inter‐ personal borrowing and the ambiguity of possession and ownership. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 13(2), 131-139.

Koles, B., & Nagy, P. (2021). Digital object attachment. Current Opinion in Psychology, 39, 60-65.

Mogaji, E., Wirtz, J., Belk, R. W., & Dwivedi, Y. K. (2023). Immersive time (ImT): Conceptualizing time spent in the metaverse. International Journal of Information Management, 72, 102659.

Morewedge, C. K., Monga, A., Palmatier, R. W., Shu, S. B., & Small, D. A. (2021). Evolution of consumption: A psychological ownership framework. Journal of Marketing, 85(1), 196-218.

Yilmaz, T., Sagfossen, S., & Velasco, C. (2023). What makes NFTs valuable to consumers? Perceived value drivers associated with NFTs liking, purchasing, and holding. Journal of Business Research, 165, 114056.

Yoo, K., Welden, R., Hewett, K., & Haenlein, M. (2023). The merchants of meta: A research agenda to understand the future of retailing in the metaverse. Journal of Retailing.

Zhang, S., De Vries, E. L., & Ding, A. (2023). The mere possession effect of shareable digital coupons: The mediating role of anticipated self‐enhancement. Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 22(1), 122-134.

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