بررسی تاثیر ادراک‌های محرمانگی، اعتماد و ریسک، فراتر از معاملات پولی: یک مدل یکپارچه

Much interest in privacy and trust studies is about shopping, but privacy research in other forms of online activities is beginning to emerge. This study examined the antecedents of privacy, trust and risk as well as their joint effect on two similar but fundamentally different activities: online transactions and retrieval of privileged information. Both activities involve the delivery of private user information, but the latter gives some leeway for users to control (or even falsify) their true identity. User shopping experience in the present study moderated the relationships and strengths of constructs. The effect of Internet literacy, social awareness and disposition to trust on privacy concern and trust was weaker for experienced shoppers. Privacy concern, trust and risk assessment played a lesser role on the two activity variables for those who were more experienced. Perceived privacy risk stood out as a strong antecedent for respondents in both experience groups, but the effect of Internet literacy, social awareness and disposition on trust was statistically insignificant for the same group. Further practical and managerial implications are provided.

Sixty-two percent of Internet users are concerned about their online privacy (Han and Maclaurin 2002). Studies (Gefen et al., 2003a, Hoffman et al., 1999 and Pavlou and Gefen, 2004) have shown that trust and privacy concerns continue to be two main components for the decision to disclose personal information on the Internet. Both trust (Chau et al., 2007, Corbitt et al., 2003, Eastlick et al., 2006 and Slyke et al., 2006) and privacy concerns (Dyke et al., 2007, Eastlick et al., 2006, Kim, 2008, Liu et al., 2005 and Malhotra et al., 2004) are also frequently cited in the literature as the main reasons for an individual’s lack of interest to establish an online relationship with merchants. Privacy and trust have received much attention in the literature for their relationships with online transactions, but today’s privacy and trust issues are not limited to only activities relating to online transactions. Many activities on the Internet (games, information sharing, insurance quotes, surfing, etc.) also have an effect on one’s privacy. In this study, we focus on the consumer’s intention to engage in two types of activities (online transactions and online privileged information searching) that require some form of personal identifiable information. Intention to transact refers to the willingness to be engaged in monetary transactions, which many times involve the exchange of accurate personal or private information. Today, many online non-monetary activities also involve the exchange of personal or private information. For example, using web sites that provide personalized stock quotes, insurance rates, loan comparisons, availability of services and credit reports all require certain personal or private information, but such activities do not necessarily require a direct monetary exchange with the web site. Some may lead to future purchases, but some may just be for personal reasons. These activities provide privileged information to the recipients, that involves the kind of information or advantage available to certain groups of people who willfully opt for the services by entering into a membership, subscription, affiliation or any sort of non-obligated service engagement. These activities are frequently associated with comparison shopping, pre-purchase information gathering and post-purchase service quotes. Thus, we propose the intention to retrieve privileged information as a variable that refers to an individual’s willingness to provide personal or private information in exchange for certain privileged or customized information from the Internet. Similar to willingness to transact online, this variable involves the exchange of personal and private information, thus several constructs (e.g., privacy, trust, and perceived risk) relating to intention to transact may also apply. This is because the risk involved in such exchange of private information is not just limited to a possible economic loss (as Dinev and Hart 2006a, and others have pointed out), but it may also be in the form of loss of private information or even identity. As Culnan and Armstrong (1999) noted, individuals surrender a certain degree of privacy when they disclose personal information. Privacy concerns are heightened and trust is lowered when consumers find it difficult to control their own private information from misuse or unauthorized distribution once it leaves their own computers. This perception of uncertainty causes hesitation for a consumer to disclose his or her personal information. Numerous e-commerce studies have focused on monetary transactions (Gefen et al., 2003a, Gupta and Kim, 2007 and Lee and Turban, 2001). Yet, very few studies have examined the impact of behavior and privacy uncertainty (privacy concerns, privacy risk and trust) for activities other than monetary transactions. Surprisingly, even fewer studies have focused on the role of privacy and trust on information searching, especially the type of information that require personal information. Since privileged information searching does not always include the delivery of goods to an individual’s physical residence or require precise contact information, accuracy of user information is not always strictly required or even validated. This offers consumers opportunities to control or fake their personal information before it is sent to the web site (Chen and Rea 2004). Little is known for the inter-twined effect of trust, privacy concerns and perceived risk on intentions to transact and retrieve privileged information online when both these latter activities are considered together. As such, a model that integrates variables relating to these two activities warrants further examination. This study is designed to build an integrated model derived from existing theories to examine the two forms of activities (transactions and retrieval of privileged information). This serves two objectives. First, the study aims to distinguish two popular online activities that bear different requirements of private information. The result is expected to shed light on the effects of antecedent variables on the two activities when both activities are taken into consideration. Second, a series of verification including model comparison with and without moderation measures lends itself both theoretical and practical contributions. Among the salient factors studied in this research are Internet literacy, social awareness and perceived risk, privacy concerns, and trust.

Prior studies have primarily focused on only privacy concerns relating to online transactions, rather than other forms of online activities. In the foreseeable future, information sharing and cloud-based computing (e.g., Google and Amazon web services) may continue to spark different forms of trust and privacy issues. An individual’s information (private or not) will likely to be available online for the person or interested parties. Further studies into the inter-twined privacy and trust relationships with transactional and non-transactional activities may be a starting point to fill the gap. Privacy and trust have been identified as key to e-commerce success. This paper provides several insights into the role of Internet literacy, social awareness, perceived risk and disposition to trust on the issue of privacy concerns and trust in e-commerce. This study also highlights the importance of using privacy concerns and trust as two distinct concepts. This study examines how the relative importance of these two constructs and of their antecedents differs between inexperienced shoppers and experienced ones. Findings of this study identified important differences between the determinants of transaction intentions for inexperienced shoppers vis-à-vis experienced shoppers. The results in this study thus have significant implications for both the theory and practice of e-commerce. Future research may explore the role of extrinsic factors in conjunction with an individual intrinsic assessments studied in the present research. In light of the globalization of Internet, it is also interesting to extend this study to include societal and cultural factors. We plan to extend this study to other countries in order to explore how cultural affects the construct relationships. Since personality traits such as social awareness and trusting disposition are built over a lifelong experience, changes on one’s privacy concerns and trust are likely due to multiple sources of influence (including culture and societal elements) that may happen at different points in time.