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Technologies are becoming increasingly autonomous, able to complete tasks on behalf of consumers without human intervention. For example, robot vacuums clean the floor while cooking machines implement recipes on their own. These autonomous products free consumers from daily chores that they used to perform manually. The current research suggests that some consumers derive meaning from completing such manual tasks, and that this meaning of manual labor acts as a barrier to the adoption of autonomous products. A series of field and experimental studies shows that consumers who score high (vs. low) on the meaning of manual labor construct tend to evaluate autonomous products less favorably and adopt them less frequently. However, making alternative sources of meaning in life salient can serve as a remedy to increase autonomous product adoption among these consumers. One such strategy is to emphasize that the time gained through the use of autonomous products can be spent on meaningful activities, thus offsetting the detrimental effects of meaning of manual labor on autonomous product adoption. The findings suggest effective interventions for firms that offer autonomous products while stressing the need to provide meaningful experiences to consumers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has established that decision‐makers engage in a bolstering process by magnifying the value of a previously made choice in order to justify their choices. The current research examines the impact of bolstering on attribute importance weights and future choices. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrate that after making a choice between a priori comparable options, consumers prefer attributes (e.g., sunlight in an apartment) that they associate with positive features of their chosen option (lot of sunlight) more than attributes they associate (a) with negative features of their chosen option or (b) with positive features of their nonchosen option. These postchoice associations and altered attribute importance weights drive subsequent preferences. In an incentive‐compatible study, Experiment 3 demonstrates that bolstering goes beyond choice justification and impacts subsequent choice. After an initial choice, participants choose new products that have positive features consistent with their original chosen option rather than products with positive features consistent with their original nonchosen option. This research contributes to the literature on preference construction by examining the impact of justification for one's previous choices on constructed attribute preferences and subsequent choices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research sheds light on consumer motivations for participating in the sharing economy and examines downstream consequences of the uncovered motivations. We use text-mining techniques to extract Airbnb hosts' motivations from their responses to the question "why did you start hosting." We find that hosts are driven not only by the monetary motivation "to earn cash" but also by intrinsic motivations such as "to share beauty" and "to meet people." Using extensive transaction-level data, we find that hosts with intrinsic motivations post more property photos and write longer property descriptions, demonstrating greater engagement with the platform. Consequently, these hosts receive higher guest satisfaction ratings. Compared to hosts who want to earn cash, hosts motivated to meet people are more likely to keep hosting and to stay active on the platform, and hosts motivated to share beauty charge higher prices. As a result, these intrinsically motivated hosts have a higher customer lifetime value compared to those with a monetary motivation. We employ a multimethod approach including text mining, Bayesian latent attrition models, and lab experiments to derive these insights. Our research provides an easy-to-implement approach to uncovering consumer motivations in practice and highlights the consequential role of these motivations for firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the guest editors discuss the theme of the issue, marketing’s role in creating a better world.