| This research addresses the question of when and how consumers get suspicious that co-creation agents they are interacting with have ulterior motives for their behavior. The theoretical basis for this research comes from literature on suspicion (e.g., Fein, Hilton, and Miller 1990; Fein, 1996). When suspicious, an individual entertains multiple, plausibly rival hypotheses about the motives of another person's behavior (Hilton, Fein, and Miller, 1993).;Most of the traditional social psychology research characterizes suspicion as a psychological state, with an individual either being in or out of a state of suspicion (Fein, Hilton, and Miller, 1990). More recent research has entertained the notion that suspicion is a dynamic process that develops over time and follows certain patterns (Marchand and Vonk, 2005). The current research therefore applies the notion of a suspicion process to a value co-creation context. Value co-creation holds the idea that "value is defined by and co-created with the consumer rather than embedded in output" (Vargo and Lusch, 2004, p. 6). From a consumer behavior perspective, not much is known yet about how consumers perceive interactions with co-creation agents, in particular, their motives for their recommendations.;This dissertation investigates under which circumstances consumers become suspicious that a co-creation agent may have ulterior motives for his/her behavior. In addition, the research examines how suspicion impacts consumers' cognitive responses during the interaction, and how and when suspicion is ultimately resolved.;Study 1 of this dissertation focuses on exploring the process of suspicion in co-creation. To this effect, the study draws on previous research on the social-psychological nature of the suspicion process (Marchand and Vonk, 2005) and assesses suspicion in an unfolding co-creation interaction. Studies 2 and 3 were designed in order to find explanations for triggers of suspicion in a co-creation encounter. Study 2 focuses on situational causes of suspicion and also addresses the role of an individual's general propensity to become suspicious. Study 3, lastly, investigates goal-related factors of suspicion. In particular, the study focuses on how consumers' goal-related mind-sets can influence suspicion, and how these effects can be mitigated when consumers' cognitive resources are constrained. |
