User Commitment to Blockchain-Based Social Media Platforms from the Perspective of Perceived Justice Regarding the Token Reward System: the Mediating Role of Psychological Ownership

Abstract

Purpose – In this study, we aimed to theorize blockchain-based social media platform users’ commitment by examining the impact of their perceived justice of the token reward system. In addition, this study applied psychological ownership theory to verify the underlying mechanism between users’ perceptions of justice and their commitment to the platforms.

Research design, data, and methodology – To empirically test our conceptual framework in the study, we collected data through a web-based survey approach from the responses of 385 users who had experience with blockchain-based social media platforms. We employed a structural equation modeling approach to empirically test our proposed hypotheses.

Result – The results indicated that distributive justice and informational justice have positive effects on user commitment. The results also showed that psychological ownership plays an important role in mediating the relationship between users’ sense of distributive justice and commitment, and between procedural justice and commitment. The findings provided a better understanding of the sense of justice and user commitment in a blockchain-based social media environment.

Conclusion – This study represents a preliminary attempt to theorize and empirically examine blockchain-based social media platform users’ commitment. This study provided important contributions to the literature on how the effect of users’ sense of justice in a reward system affects their commitment to blockchain-based social media platforms.