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Will You "Dashang"? Effects of Social Signals in Online Pay-What-You-Want

Dashang, as a new form of the pay-what-you-want (PWYW) pricing paradigm, has emerged on social media platforms, especially in China. In the settings of Dashang, consumers are free to pay any amount to the authors or broadcasters after they have consumed some information goods. Compared with traditional offline scenes, Dashang has incorporated more social elements and platform engagements. However, it remains unelucidated what are the critical factors that motivate users to pay. In this paper, we investigate whether and how social signals, such as the disclosed information about the volume of paid people, may influence consumers’ willingness to pay under Dashang. An ambivalent framework is proposed, suggesting that such social signals may have both positive and negative effects on voluntary payment. The manuscript is to present the theoretical development of the research, aiming to reveal the benefits and liabilities of the social signal disclosure mechanism.