Trust, privacy, and disclosure - A situational perspective

Abstract

To be successful in e-commerce, consumersa?? personal information is extremely important to online vendors in understanding their consumers and planning their marketing strategies. Previous research has established that disclosure tendency of consumers would be influenced by rewards, privacy concerns, and consumer trust. However, the real mechanisms of trust in the determining the consumersa?? disclosure intention are not fully explored. Considering both dispositional and situational factors, this research has found that consumers would be more willing to disclose when provided with rewards that they value, and when they have low specific concerns regarding the online vendorsa?? information privacy practices. Moreover, besides directly affecting disclosure, consumer trust has been found to strengthen the relationship between consumersa?? reward preferences and their perceived reward values. This study has also provided weak support for the undermining of the relationship between consumersa?? dispositional privacy concerns and their respective specific privacy concerns under the presence of trust.