INFORMATION TRANSPARANCY
AND RECIPROCITY
The effect of corporate transparency on customers’ willingness to disclose
personal information.
Name: Eméli Schoenmaker
Student number: 10868623
Master thesis supervisor: Joris Demmers
Date of submission: 23-06-2015 (final)
MSc Business Administration – Marketing track
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Statement of Originality
This document is written by Student Eméli Schoenmaker who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
2 Abstract
The world has become increasingly transparent over the past few years. The ability to easily obtain customer data is quite relevant since a company is able to provide more value with this data to a customer. However, since customers became aware of the value of their personal data and the misuse of this data, they have increasingly taken steps to protect their data. It has therefore become a challenge to find out if and how people’s willingness to disclose their personal data to a company could be increased. This research examines if reciprocity can play a role in increasing customers’ willingness to disclose personal information and whether the type of information and the information source can play a part therein. We conducted an online experiment, in which participants were asked to share their personal medical profile. The findings show that information disclosed by the UvA or by an employee of the company can increase people their willingness to disclose their personal profile. In some cases, the type of information was also of interest. The results advance current knowledge of
transparency by showing that the source who provides the organizational information is quite important with regard to customers’ willingness to share personal information. This research shows that organizations and managers can use reciprocity as a mechanism to motivate customers to disclose their personal data.
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Table of contents
1. Introduction ... 4 2. Theoretical Framework ... 7 Transparency ... 7 Self-disclosure ... 8 Reciprocity ... 9 Trust ... 12 Privacy concerns ... 12 3. Method ... 14 3.1 Sample ... 14 3.2 Design ... 14 3.3 Manipulations ... 14 3.4 Procedure ... 163.5 Measurement of the variables ... 16
4. Results ... 18
5. Conclusion and Discussion ... 25
5.1 The conclusion of this research ... 25
5.2 Theoretical and practical implications ... 26
5.3 Discussion ... 27
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1. Introduction
In recent years, more information about companies and customers is collected, produced and used than is often realized, due to improvements in technology. With these advances, it is nowadays possible to gain access to all kinds of information, which can be of help in all sorts of ways. It is sometimes said that we live in the age of transparency, where ‘everything that can be exposed will be exposed’ (Fournier & Avery, 2011, p. 198).
Due to this increase in visibility, many articles have been written and quite some research has been conducted, to gain a deeper understanding of what transparency is about, how it has developed over time and what its consequences are for companies, consumers and society as a whole (Cohn & Wolfe, 2013; Oulasvirta et al., 2014).
Advancing technological developments, in particular the internet and social media, have made it possible to share any kind of information about products and companies, but also made it possible to access and collect information (online) that is created by others or shared by companies themselves (Fournier & Avery, 2011; Labrecque, Esche, Mathwick, Novak & Hofacker, 2013; Peltier, Milne & Phelps, 2009). This easier access to information leads to more demanding consumers, with more information needs, reduced uncertainty and better informed or better educated consumers (Labrecque et al., 2013). Customers also use the available information to make purchase decisions, something that can be quite beneficial for companies (Labrecque et al., 2013; Leeflang, Verhoef, Dahlström & Freundt, 2014).
The technological developments also benefit companies, since it is easier to collect customer related data. Firms make use of the available customer information, because this data is used and (increasingly) important in the development of competitive strategies (Awad & Krishnan, 2006; Culnan & Armstrong, 1999; Zimmer et al., 2010). Consumer data may be very helpful when companies want to profile their individual customers or when they want to personalize services and online experiences (Culnan & Armstrong, 1999; Labrecque et al., 2013; Moon, 2000). By including preferences of customers in a product/service, this product or service may better fit customer’ needs than the product/service of the competitor, which generates an advantage (Zimmer et al., 2010). Customer data can therefore play a role in improving or adapting current products that better fit customer needs, it is used to develop new products and services, and it can even improve productivity (Awad & Krishnan, 2006; Chen & Zhang, 2014). This data can also be used to make (more) personalized products, which benefits
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companies with regard to their reputation and possibly sales (Hui, Teo & Lee, 2007; Peltier et al., 2009).
Unfortunately, with the increase in transparency also come privacy concerns. Due to
improved technologies and the emergence of the internet, companies are able to collect data about their customers, such as their purchase history, places and sites they have visited, and people they have communicated with (Labrecque et al., 2013). This may possibly bring the privacy of customers at risk. Privacy is about the degree of control someone has over any information related to himself. In other words, the control, security and access a customer has over his own personal information (Awad & Krishnan, 2006; Peltier et al., 2009).
Consumers become more aware of this phenomenon and are therefore increasingly taking steps to protect themselves, for example by reducing the amount of personal information placed online (Liu et al., 2013) or by providing other parties less/no access their personal data (Boyles et al., 2012). This has consequences for companies’ product and service innovations and improvements, because customer data can play an important role in the development of new products/services and in improving or personalizing current products (Awad & Krishnan, 2006; Chen & Zhang, 2014; Labrecque et al., 2013). The question then arises how companies can cope with these concerns, how they can motivate customers to disclose personal
information and how they are thereby able to ensure customers that their privacy is not at stake.
Possibly, the valuing of transparent companies can offer a solution to the reduced access to customer data or the release thereof. Consumers increasingly value the role of transparency and they also consider the transparency of a company in their purchase decisions (Fournier & Avery, 2011; Cohn & Wolfe, 2013). Perhaps, increased transparency by companies can lead to increased willingness to disclose personal information by customers or providing
companies access to their (personal) data. Research shows that people are more willing to disclose information when they have a unique relationship with someone, in comparison to their general willingness to disclose (Miller & Kenny, 1986). A company can perhaps, when building a unique relationship with its customer(s), increase customer’s willingness to grant the company access to their personal data.
Further research is necessary to investigate how companies can increase customer’s self-disclosure or how they can influence customer’s willingness to disclose personal information, because as previously indicated, customer data is of great importance to organizations.
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Possibly this can be done by increasing the degree of business transparency. Therefore, the research question that will be answered in this research is as follows:
Does corporate transparency induce a process of reciprocity which induces consumers to share their personal data with the organization? How should organizations share
information as to maximize this effect?
The current study can advance current knowledge of transparency and possibly ad knowledge to the current literature with regard to possibilities to increase people’s willingness to self-disclose. In comparison with the current literature, this research will be different, because the company-consumer and company-employee relationship will be investigated instead of agent-principal information exchanges or exchanges between a computer and a respondent. This investigation will build on the research of Zimmer et al. (2010), by including trust and privacy concerns as mediators, incorporating general and specific information disclosure as
independent variable and differentiate between different information sources. In the case that the hypothesis are supported, the results of this research have some theoretical and managerial implications, namely that reciprocity can work as a mechanism to motivate people to self-disclose; because people feel some kind of obligation to do so. To be able to use personal data or have people voluntarily share their information with the company, reciprocity can be used as a mechanism by managers and companies to produce such behavior.
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2. Theoretical Framework
Transparency
What becomes clear from all transparency research, is that there are different meanings (Ball, 2009) and that there is no consensus about the definition of transparency, which makes it hard to define what it actually is. According to multiple researchers, transparency is about
providing access to accurate, reliable and complete information (Bandsuch, Pate & Thies, 2008; Christensen, 2002; Kanagaretnam et al., 2009). From an economical perspective, transparency is about the amount of information that is accessible and visible in the
marketplace (Zhu, 2002; 2004). Oulasvirta et al. (2014) argue from a social point of view, that transparency is about all the information of one person/company, available to another person or company. From a corporate perspective, transparency is seen as disclosing firm specific information, such as accounting principles, financial information and governance, to outside firms (Bushman, Piotroski & Smith, 2004). In addition, Hultman & Axelsson (2007) came up with an extension of the transparency concept and describe four types of transparency:
technology transparency, transparent supply, organizational transparency and transparency with regard to costs. In this study, transparency is approached from a corporate perspective such that it is about the active role an organization plays in making business information available. It is about the provision of information by the organization that is accurate and reliable.
Through the years, transparency has become of great importance in the consumer-company relationship. The rise of the internet and advanced technologies have also ensured that consumers have become better educated and they came to know about malpractices (Cohn & Wolfe, 2013; Labrecque et al., 2013). By these insights, consumers demand from companies that they disclose information about their business practices to maintain valid and trustworthy; that they become transparent. Due to the increased importance of transparency for both
companies and customers, some authors aim at incorporating transparency in the organization’s activities and strategy (Christensen, 2002; Granados & Gupta, 2013). Consumers gain from the increased access to organizational information, because they are already beforehand, able to judge products and services through user-generated content (Labrecque et al., 2013). Research has shown that businesses, that are transparent about their supply chain, may affect the attitudes of their consumers and consumers’ purchase intentions (Bhaduri & Ha-Brookshire, 2011). Further, providing complete information in an investment
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game setting, showed that transparency is important for trustworthiness and increased trusting behavior between two persons (Kanagaretnam et al., 2009). Research also shows that
transparency strengthens effort levels, in comparison to a situation where effort levels are not revealed (Irlenbusch & Sliwka, 2005). A transparent relationship in which individuals are informed about each other’s estates and actions, can also influence customer satisfaction and lead to positive behavioral intentions, such as word-of-mouth and repurchase intentions (Eggert & Helm, 2003).
Companies not only benefit from being transparent, they also benefit from the increased availability of information. The advances in technologies have made it possible for marketers to collect, transmit and use all sorts of consumer data which they can use to make descriptions about current and future customers (Malhotra, Kim, & Agarwal, 2004). It is also used to improve and personalize offerings (Hui, Teo & Lee, 2007; Peltier et al.,2009; Milne & Phelps, 2009), which can be beneficial for a company’s reputation and possibly for its sales as well as for consumers, because those products have more personalized features and are better aligned with consumer demand.
Unfortunately, sometimes customers take steps to reduce companies’ access to their personal data (Boyles et al., 2012) or reduce information disclosure (Awad & Krishnan, 2006; Liu et al., 2013). The question then arises how customers can be motivated to disclose personal information and how companies can play a role therein.
Self-disclosure
The disclosure of information by the company or person himself, is called self-disclosure. Self-disclosure is about communicating secret, hidden or personal information to others (Collins & Miller, 1994; Jiang, Bazarova, & Hancock, 2013). Authors distinguish between general and intimate information disclosure, whereby the latter consists of disclosing very personal information that contains high risk (Moon, 2000). Current literature is mainly about what the effects are of information transparency on people’s self-disclosure, in particular, on the extent to which people want to be profiled online and will partake in online
personalization of products/services (Award & Krishnan, 2006; White, 2004). Other research investigated that mood can have an effect on the willingness to disclose (personal)
information (Forgas, 2011). However, not only mood, but also liking plays a role in self-disclosure. People tend to disclose more (personal) information to someone they like or feel connected with (Collins & Miller, 1994). At the same time, people tend to like each other
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more and produce more intimate feelings, towards a person to whom they reveal some personal information. This facilitates the development of interpersonal relationships (Jiang et al., 2013) and this in turn may have a positive effect on the amount of information disclosed.
Besides this, some researchers have also looked to self-disclosure of intimate information at the dyadic level between two people (Miller & Kenny, 1986). Miller & Kenny (1986) found that people were more willing to disclose information when in a unique relationship than in comparison to their general willingness to disclose. If such a unique relationship is built between a company and its customer, this can possibly increase customer’s willingness to disclose personal information. Information exchange, due to a unique relationship between two parties, is also known as reciprocity.
Reciprocity
Reciprocity is about the level of sharing, or rewarding an action or behavior with a similar action or behavior. (Irlenbusch & Sliwka, 2005; Kanagaretnam et al., 2009). Reciprocity can also be about the exchange of information, whereby the amount (and intimacy) of information someone is willing to disclose depends on the degree and intimacy of the information
disclosed by the other party (Kanagaretnam et al., 2009; Moon, 2000). In the current research, reciprocity is about information exchange. Reciprocity implies an exchange of behavior or information that is equal. In other words, when someone reveals intimate information to another person, that person tends to disclose a similar degree of intimate information;
information or behavior that is of comparable value (Derlega, Harris, & Chaikin, 1973; Miller & Kenny, 1986; Rotenberg & Chase, 1992).
The degree of intimate information can thus be of importance to people’s willingness to disclose and to the amount of intimate information they are willing to disclose. Irlenbusch & Sliwka (2005) investigated an agency relationship between an agent who has to undertake some level of action and a principal who determines the agents’ wage. Their research shows that in the complete information condition, where the effort of the agent is made known to the principal, the reciprocal behavior is much stronger than in the non-transparent condition. Providing information can thus trigger reciprocal behavior. This is supported by Moon (2000), who showed that in a computer-customer relationship, when a computer preceded the question with some information about itself, respondents were more willing/likely to disclose intimate information about themselves, compared with a situation in which respondents were not given any information about the company. This finding is consistent with the norms of
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reciprocity. Especially when a company provided information about why they are collecting customer data, individuals were willing to disclose more personal information (Zimmer et al., 2010).
Since information disclosure, especially complete information or information about the intentions of the company, can result in more intimate responses, it seems possible that being transparent as a company can trigger customers’ self-disclosure. Something that is of interest, since customer data can be quite important in the innovation and development of products and services (Chen & Zhang, 2014). If it can be found that consumers are more willing to disclose their personal data when a company is transparent by disclosing information, a new strategy is found that can improve companies’ access to customer data. It follows that:
H1: Corporate disclosure of information enhances consumers’ willingness to disclose personal information to the organization.
Research has shown that the credibility of a message varies by information source (Brinol & Petty, 2009; Eisend, 2006). This means that the perception of the information, depends on who discloses the information. Wilson & Sherrel (1993) support this statement by arguing that different information sources have different effects on the persuasion of customers. Sparks, Perkins & Buckley (2013) argue that perceptions about the information source can influence beliefs and attitudes, whereby credibility and trustworthiness are important. Next to this, reactions and attitudes depend on the information source’ similarity, attractiveness and expertise (Wilson & Sherrel, 1993), whereby. The source is thus important in the provision of information.
Since companies are more psychologically distant than human beings, because they don’t have the exact same behavioral and physical characteristics as people (Moon, 2000), intimate disclosure is less likely to occur and thus liking occurs less rapidly, what can influence
customer information disclosure (Collins & Miller, 1994). Therefore, it seems that individuals are more likely to disclose personal information to a person (employee or customer), who provides information about the company, since he/she is judged as more similar and attractive, in comparison to a company. It follows that:
H2: The effect of corporate disclosure of information on consumers’ willingness to disclose personal information to the organization is moderated by information source, such that the effect is larger when the information is disclosed by an employee of the organization (rather than by the entity of the organization itself).
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Not only the source of the information, but also the type of information that is provided may play a role in people’s willingness to disclose personal information. Research has shown that when people are explicitly told that their personal information will be handled in a fair way, this can reduce the perceived risks of disclosing information (Culnan & Armstrong, 1999). An extension to this research is the research of Zimmer et al. (2010), who found that when a company provides information about why they are collecting information, people are more likely to disclose information. These findings are supported by Oulasvirta et al. (2014) who found that the intentions of the data collector can reduce the perceived risk associated with personal information disclosure.
It seems that providing information with regard to the intentions of the data collector, also called specific information disclosure, has a larger effect on customers’ willingness to disclose, than when some general information about the company is provided. It is therefore argued that providing information about the reason why the company is collecting customer data, leads to a higher intent to disclose by customers, than when some other (general) information is provided. It follows that:
H3: Specific organizational information disclosure has a larger effect on consumer’s willingness to disclose personal information, in comparison to general organizational information disclosure.
Researchers in the transparency literature investigated in particular the positive and negative effects of transparency. In addition to the effect of transparency on consumer’s willingness to disclose, researchers also looked at the relationship between transparency and trust in the company and found that full information disclosure increases trust (Kanagaretnam et al., 2009). Since research has shown that trust can increase the intent to disclose (Zimmer et al., 2010), it is possible that organizational disclosure can have an effect on customer’s
willingness to disclose through trust. The same accounts for privacy concerns. In particular, a negative relationship is found between transparency and privacy concerns (Culnan &
Armstrong, 1999; Oulasvirta et al., 2014) as well as between privacy concerns and intent to disclose (Zimmer et al., 2010). Therefore it is possible that there is an effect of company information disclosure on customer self-disclosure through reduced privacy concerns or increased trust levels, something that will be investigated in the current research. Since trust and privacy concerns may play an important (mediating) role in the effect of corporate transparency on customers’ willingness to disclose personal information, these concepts will now be further explored.
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Trust
Transparency is positively related to trust (Rawlins, 2008). In particular, transparency may affect the trust customers have in a company. It can also increase the people’s trust in people with whom they interact or have a relationship with. Research by Kanagaretnam et al., (2009) showed the effect of two different transparency levels on trust in an investment game. One group received complete information while the other group was given incomplete
information. They found that transparency (complete information condition) increases trust between the investor and the receiver.
The disclosure of information does not have to be entirely positive. When some negative information is included, people are more convinced that a company speaks the truth (Eisend, 2006). Next to this, Auger (2014) found that trust increases when organizations communicate transparently, or when they have a good reputation regarding transparency. Increased trust can, on the other hand, have positive consequences on a person’s willingness to disclose intimate information. Zimmer et al. (2010) found that the more a consumer trusts the website, the higher the intentions to disclose information. These findings indicate that organizational transparency can possibly increase people’s willingness to disclose (personal) information indirectly, through increased trust in the organization. It follows that:
H4: The effect of corporate disclosure of information on consumers’ willingness to disclose personal information to the organization is mediated by consumers’ trust in the organization.
Privacy concerns
Providing information to other parties, such as giving personal information to companies or putting personal information on sites as Facebook, can also have some negative effects regarding privacy concerns. Privacy is seen as degree of control someone has over his own personal data; the extent to which someone is aware of personal information usage by the company, and the ability to exercise control over who has access to the personal data and over who gains permission to use it (Culnan & Armstrong, 1999; Peltier et al., 2009). One of the risks of the increased collection of consumer data, is that information of consumers can be used without notice or permission, or even can be misused (Peltier et al. 2009). The positive effects of increased transparency are discussed and known, but when secondary information is used without knowledge of the customer this may be seen as an invasion of privacy (Culnan, 1993).
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When privacy concerns are present, people are less willing to disclose personal information, for example on online websites such as Facebook (Liu, et al., 2013). Due to these possible negative consequences, consumers are increasingly taking measures to reduce transparency and access to their personal data (Boyles, Smith & Madden, 2012). Privacy concerns can thus reduce people’s willingness to disclose personal data or deny companies access to use their personal data (Boyles et al., 2012; Liu et al., 2013), especially when privacy and fair
information practices are not guaranteed (Culnan & Armstrong, 1999). Since customer data play an important role in the development of new or personalized products, companies should take measures to reduce those privacy concerns.
As shown by Oulasvirta et al. (2014), privacy issues can be reduced with the aid of information disclosure. They found that the provision of information about the collector’s identity decreased privacy concerns and information about the collector’s intention(s) decreased privacy concerns even more. Also, Culnan & Armstrong (1999) found that when people are told that fair procedures are involved regarding their personal data, privacy concerns do not differ between respondents. It is also found that when privacy of personal data is ensured through a privacy statement, people are more willing to disclose their personal information (Hui et al., 2007). However, this depends on the value people attach to
information transparency features. When consumers value information transparency, they are less willing to disclose personal information (Awad & Krishnan, 2006; Culnan, 1993). This also applies to people who are very sensitive about usage of their personal data. On the other hand, people are willing to disclose personal data in exchange for a personalized offering (White, 2004).
The intention or the identity of the data collector can thus reduce privacy concerns of the respondent (Culnan & Armstrong, 1999; Hui et al., 2007; Oulasvirta et al., 2014), although it is unclear what the consequence of such a reduction can be on the self-disclosure of
consumers. However, some research shows, that a negative relationship exists between privacy concerns and intention to disclose, so that when privacy concerns are reduced,
willingness to disclose increases (Zimmer et al., 2010). It is therefore possible, that providing organizational information can influence customers’ intent to disclose, through reduced privacy concerns. It is important to gain knowledge about this possible relationship, because it can increase a companies’ access to customer data. It follows that:
H5: The effect of corporate disclosure of information on consumers’ willingness to disclose personal information to the organization is mediated by consumers’ privacy concerns.
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3. Method
With the aid of the literature review in chapter 2, more insight has been gained in the concepts transparency, self-disclosure, trust and privacy concerns. The relationships between these concepts will be investigated in this quantitative research to answer the research question. In this chapter the sample, design, manipulations, measurement of the variables and procedure of this research will be clarified.
3.1 Sample
A convenience sample was chosen for this research. In the end, the sample mainly consisted of UvA students and next to this, others who were willing to participate in the study. In the end 287 people participated in the study. Of those, 221 participants read the manipulation text and filled out whether they were willing to disclose their personal profile/Facebook (FB) data to the RVNZ or not. Only 179 filled out the complete survey including the manipulation check and the questions about Brand Trust and Privacy Concerns.
Of those 221 participants, 43 were male and 178 were female. The greater part of the participants completed a HBO study (25,3%), a BSc (20,4%) or an MSc (23,5%). It can therefore be said that the participants were medium to highly educated. Of the participants, most were unmarried (49,3%) or single (38,9%) and the major part did not have any children live in (90,5%).
3.2 Design
In this research we looked at whether organizational information disclosure can influence consumer self-disclosure. An experimental design was used to test the hypotheses. The design was a 3 (information source: Company RVNZ vs. employee vs. UvA) x 2 (information type: general vs. specific) + 1 (control group) between subjects design. The dependent variable was: willingness to disclose personal information.
3.3 Manipulations
Information source: this variable was manipulated by showing participants a text about the insurance company RVNZ, provided by different sources.
- Company condition: when people were given information about the RVNZ by the company itself, the logo of the RVNZ was shown. The logo was accompanied with the following text: ‘In the context of this study, the company RVNZ wants to share some information on...’. 1st
person plural was used in the text, such as ‘Annually we provide…’ and ‘we as the RVNZ have..’.
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- Employee condition: participants who were given information about the RVNZ by an employee, were shown a picture of Ralph Verhoeven together with the logo of the RVNZ, and were provided with the following information: ‘The UvA works together with the counsel for Dutch health insurers (RVNZ). Ralph Verhoeven is a board member of the RVNZ. He would like to share the following information with you:’. The information that was provided, was told from the employee, such as ‘Our office in Rotterdam..’ and ‘We have access to..’.
- UvA condition: participants who were given information about the RVNZ by the UvA, were shown the UvA logo and were provided with the following information: ‘The UvA works together with the counsel for Dutch health insurers (RVNZ). The following information comes from a research into various industry associations of the UvA. The UvA would like to share the following information with you:’. The information was provided from the
perspective of the 3rd person, such as: ‘Yearly, the RVNZ provides information about..’. Information type: this variable was manipulated by showing participants a different text in the survey. A participant in the general information disclosure condition was given
information about the sustainability and corporate social responsibility of the RVNZ, their points for improvement and their sustainability goals for 2020. A participant in the specific information disclosure condition was given specific information about the intentions of RVNZ of collecting customer data, their privacy statement and their performance regarding the correct handling of private information.
Pilot testing: a pilot study was conducted to evaluate the time, feasibility and to improve the research design where necessary, to make sure that the study is adequately designed. 18 participants read all the questions and filled out a survey which contained 9 items. The items on time, positivity and feasibility were rated on a 7-point scale (1=strongly disagree to 7=strongly agree). Two open questions were asked, one with regard to spelling and text errors, and one with regard to possible improvements. The results showed, that it could be assumed that the general information disclosure by the RVNZ, the employee and the UvA was pretty positive (RVNZ, M = 4,56, Employee, M = 5,29, UvA, M = 5,13). Specific information disclosure appeared to be pretty positive too (RVNZ, M = 4,78, Employee, M = 5,18, UvA, M = 5, 15). The feasibility (M = 3,90) and duration of the questionnaire were rated moderately positive (M = 3,67), since some of the participants thought the information disclosure text was too long. Attempts were made to shorten the texts. In addition,
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as highest level of education option. With the help of this test, spelling and text mistakes were also removed.
3.4 Procedure
The measurement and manipulations were included in an online survey that was sent online via the researcher. Before the survey started, it was shortly explained to the participants what the research was about. By clicking through, respondents started with the self-disclosure questions whereupon they were assigned to one of the 7 conditions, shown by the table below.
Company disclosure
(RVNZ)
Employee disclosure
(Board member Ralph Verhoeven)
UvA disclosure
No disclosure 1. No disclosure. Degree of CSR execution 2. General information
provided by RVNZ.
3. General information
provided by Ralph Verhoeven.
4. General information
provided by the UvA
Intentions of information collection 5. Specific information provided by RVNZ. 6. Specific information provided by Ralph Verhoeven. 7. Specific information
provided by the UvA.
Table 1: The 7 possible manipulations
After the manipulation part, every respondent was shown an overview of the answer he/she gave to the self-disclosure questions, in other words his/her personal profile. Every participant was then asked if he or she was willing to disclose this profile to the RVNZ. Next to this, every person was asked if he/she was willing to share (a part of) his/her Facebook data. Hereafter, there followed some questions about Brand Trust and Privacy Concerns regarding the RVNZ. Finally, a manipulation check was executed. At the end, the participants were debriefed, explaining that the research was not executed to test an algorithm (something that was stated at the beginning of the research), but was executed to find out if people were willing to disclose their personal medical information via the internet. The participants were then thanked for their participation.
3.5 Measurement of the variables
Self-disclosure measured through people their answers to two self-made questions. The questionnaire consisted of a summary of the responses to the questions, followed by the question if respondents were willing to share their personal profile with the RVNZ. Next to
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this, the respondents were asked if they wanted to share (a part of) their Facebook data with the RVNZ.
Health measured by using two questions of the 36-item scale of SF-361, an instrument
designed to measure general health status. Since the objective was to identify a persons’ health, the items were selected based on the extent to which they measured the health of respondents in general. The other questions were drafted with the aid of medical
questionnaires used by Dutch insurance companies2, whereby the focus was on the identification of the general health of the participants. The questionnaire consisted of 10 questions related to the health characteristics of participants. A sample item of the ‘health’ variable was: ‘Have you used (alternative) medication, the last two years?’.
Company trust this variable was measured by adapting 3 items of a 4-item scale developed by Chaudhuri & Holbrook (2001) and by adapting two items of an 8-item scale developed by Doney, & Cannon (1997). The items were selected on the extent to which the information provided about the RVNZ, could influence the degree to which the participants agreed to the trust statements. For example ‘This firm keeps promises it makes to us’ was not included, since no participant did have any previous experience with the RVNZ and therefore could not answer this question. 5-point scales (1=strongly disagree, 5= strongly agree) were used on which the respondents rated their agreement. A sample item of this variable was: ‘I trust the RVNZ’. (M = 2.77, α= .77)
Privacy concerns this variable was measured by adapting 6 items from a 15-item scale developed by Smith, Milberg, & Burke (1996), often used by other researchers (Malhotra et al., 2004). In order to avoid that the questionnaire was too long, only 6 items were selected and adapted that would best fit the specific context of this study. The respondents rated their agreement on a 7-point scale (1=strongly disagree, 7= strongly agree) as was done by Smith et al.,
(1996). A sample item of this variable was: ‘I am concerned that the company will share my personal data with third parties’. (M = 4,97, α= .83)
Manipulation check: to make sure that participants remembered and understood who gave them information about the RVNZ, participants were asked who provided them with information about the insurance company RVNZ. Next to this, to measure the perceived
1http://www.clintools.com/victims/resources/assessment/health/SF36.pdf 2https://www.aonexpatinsurance.com/InitAction.do;
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transparency, participants were asked how they perceived the degree of transparency (M = 4.00, α = .60).
4. Results
Of the 221 participants who filled out the survey, 174 did not want to share their personal profile with the RVNZ and only 47 respondents wanted to share their personal data with the RVNZ. Next to this, the majority didn’t want to share their Facebook data with the RVNZ (86,4%), 20 respondents did not have Facebook and only 3 people wanted to share (a part of) their Facebook data with the RVNZ.
First, a cross tabulation was conducted between the dependent variables ‘willingness to share personal profile’ and ‘willingness to share Facebook data’ and the 7 manipulations. Table 2 shows an overview of the respondents who were (not) willing to share their personal profile and Facebook data, as well as the total amount of people who answered the question. What is striking, is that in relation, relatively few people were willing to disclose, however, when they were given information by the UvA regarding the CSR activities of the RVNZ, almost 50% was willing to disclose.
YES, I want to
share my personal profile with the RVNZ
NO, I don’t want to
share my personal profile with the RVNZ
TOT YES, I grant the
RVNZ access to (a part) of my FB data
NO, I don’t want to
share my FB data with the RVNZ (or ’I don’t have FB’) 1. Control 4 18 22 0 18 (+4) 2. Company, general 3 20 23 0 21 (+2) 3. Employee, general 6 16 22 0 18 (+4) 4. UvA, general 10 13 23 1 20 (+2) 5. Company, specific 2 22 24 1 21 (+2) 6. Employee, specific 8 15 23 1 19 (+3) 7. UvA, specific 4 19 23 0 20 (+3)
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Graph 1: Overview of respondents who were willing to share their personal profile and
Facebook data with the RVNZ.
According to hypothesis H1, organizational information disclosure has a positive effect on customers’ willingness to disclose personal information to the organization. Next to this, according to hypothesis H2 and H3, the type of information and the source who provides the information may influence customers’ willingness to disclose. To see if providing a certain type of information influences customers’ willingness to disclose (personal) information and to see if information source has a significant influence on willingness to disclose, a logistic regression analysis was conducted first. A logistic regression analysis was chosen, because the outcome variable is a dichotomous variable. The control group was excluded from this regression, since these people did not see any information or text. The results of the regression analysis are presented in table 3. The regression analysis showed that when a model
including information type, information source and their interaction is tested against a
constant only model, this model is not significantly better in predicting willingness to disclose than it is with only the constant included (χ2 (3) = 6.87, p > .05).
Table 3: Results of the logistic regression analysis for information source. N = 133
95% CI for Odds Ratio
B (SE) Lower Odds Ratio Upper
Included
Constant -1.85 (.53)
Info_Source (0 = RVNZ, 1 = Employee, 2 = UvA) .80* (.36) 1.10 2.24 4.53
Info_Type (0 = general info, 1 = specific info) .23 (.74) .299 1.26 5.34
Info_Source * Info_Type -.50 (.52) .22 .61 1.69
R2 =.050 (Cox & Snell), .075 (Nagelkerke). Modelχ2 (1) = 6.87, p >.05. * p < .05
18% 13% 27% 43% 8% 35% 17% 0% 0% 0% 4% 4% 4% 0% CONTROL COMPANY, GENERAL EMPLOYEE, GENERAL
UVA, GENERAL COMPANY, SPECIFIC
EMPLOYEE, SPECIFIC
UVA, SPECIFIC Willing to share personal profile Willing to share FB data
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The model does show that information source has a significant influence on willingness to disclose in comparison to not willing to share information (p < .05). The β value indicates that when someone goes from RVNZ disclosure to employee disclosure or from an employee disclosure situation to one where the UvA discloses information, the willingness to disclose increases by 80.4%. The results in table 3 also show that no significant effect was found for information type (p >.05), what indicates that there is no relationship between information type and willingness to disclose. The results further show that the interaction effect of information type and information source has no significant influence on willingness to disclose in comparison to not willing to share (p > .05). There is thus no significant effect of those two variables together on willingness to disclose personal information.
To test whether or not the different manipulations had a significant effect on whether or not to disclose their personal profile, multiple logistic regression analyses were conducted. The results of this analysis can be found in Table 4. The model was tested against a constant only model and it can be said that is was statistically significant (χ2 (6) = 14.383, p= .026), such that there is a difference between the baseline model and the model with the explanatory variables included. What can be seen in Table 4, is that general disclosure provided by the UvA (p < .01) and specific disclosure provided by the employee (p <.05) significantly contribute to the customers willingness to disclose. Compared to the control condition, UvA general disclosure and Employee specific disclosure evoked more willingness to disclose compared to the model without the variables (control condition).
Table 4: Results of the logistic regression analysis of the different manipulations on
willingness to disclose. N = 221
B (SE) P Lower Upper
Constant - 1.69 (.29)
2. RVNZ, general disclosure -.21 (.68) .764 .213 3.112 3. Employee, general disclosure .71 (.56) .204 .679 6.102 4. UvA, general disclosure 1.43** (.51) .005 1.53 11.377 5. RVNZ, specific disclosure -.71 (.80) .374 .104 2.338 6. Employee, specific disclosure 1.06* (.53) .043 1.033 8.111 7. UvA, specific disclosure .13 (.62) .830 .338 3.870
R2 = 0.061. Model χ2 (6) = 14.383, p < .05 *p <.05 **p <.01
Next to this, the conditions were not only compared with the control condition - the condition in which a respondent did not received any information about the RVNZ - but also with each other (Table 5). One of the results from this contrast analysis, is that it shows that when the
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general information was provided by the UvA, this caused an increase in willingness to disclose compared to the situation where general information was provided by the RVNZ (B (SE) = 1.64 (.75), p = .029). This also accounts for the situation in which someone received general information from the UvA. When brand specific condition is compared to the situation in which the UvA provided general information, the willingness to disclose is quite higher in the UvA general condition (214%). The results further showed that there is no significant difference between general information provided by the UvA compared to specific information provided by the UvA, however it was close to significance (p = .06). Further, as can be seen in table 5, when specific information was provided by the employee, the
willingness to disclose was higher by a factor of 1.77, compared to the situation where specific information was provided by the RVNZ.
2. Brand General 3. Employee General
4. UvA General 5. Brand Specific 6. Employee Specific 2 3 χ2 = 1.44 B(SE) = .92 (.78) 4 χ2 = 5.47 B(SE) = 1.64* (.75) χ2 = 1.30 B(SE) = .72 (.64) 5 χ2 = .28 B(SE) = .50 (.96) χ2 = 2.96 B(SE) = 1.42 (.88) χ2 = 8.14 B(SE) = 2.14* (.17) 6 χ2 = 3.08 B(SE) = -1.27 (.76) χ2 = .30 B(SE) = -.35 (.65) χ2 = .37 B(SE) = .37 (.61) χ2 = 5.17 B(SE) = 1.77* (.86) 7. UvA Specific χ2 = .17 B(SE) = -.34 (.83) χ2 = .64 B(SE) = .58 (.73) χ2 = 3.79 B(SE) = 1.30 (.69) χ2 = .41 B(SE) = .52 (.82) χ2 = 1.83 B(SE) = -.93 (.70) Table 5: Comparison of the different conditions with each other on willingness to disclose,
Df(1). *p <.05 **p <.01
As can be seen in the tables above and as discussed, the results show that there is a difference between de control condition and general disclosure when provided by the UvA, between general information provided between the RVNZ and the UvA, between the control condition and specific disclosure when provided by the employee, between the brand specific
information condition and the employee specific information condition, and between the UvA general information condition and the RVNZ specific information condition.
Multiple regression analyses were conducted to find out if the significant differences can be explained by privacy concerns or brand trust. First, the difference between the control group + condition 2 (general information disclosed by the RVNZ), and condition 4 (general
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information provided by the UvA) was examined. According to hypothesis H4, brand trust mediates the relationship between information disclosure and customers willingness to disclose. Brand trust possibly explains the significant difference between those conditions, such that disclosure by the UvA leads to increased brand trust and therefore leads to increased willingness to disclose. Privacy concerns are also taken into account, since the identity and practices of the data collector can decrease privacy concerns (Oulasvirta et al., 2014).
To analyze the indirect effects, the analytical method Process was used (Hayes, 2013). The results of the Process regression analysis show (Hayes, 2013) that there is a direct effect of general information disclosed by the UvA on willingness to disclose personal information to the company (p < .05).The source of the information disclosure, does not have a significant effect on privacy concerns (p >.05). Next to this, the relationship between information source and trust was not significant (p >.05). The analysis also shows that the relationship between trust and willingness to disclose is not significant (p >.05). The relationship between privacy concerns and willingness to disclose is however significant (p <.05) what tells us that when the privacy concerns with regard to a company increase, the willingness to disclose decreases. The model shows that trust and privacy concerns, in this case, did not mediate the effect of organizational information disclosure on willingness to disclose.
β = .13, p = .26 β = .77, p = .53
β = 1.61, p = .04
β = -.27, p = .40 β = -1.43, p = .01
Model 1: Schematic overview of executed regressions, control group + general disclosure by RVNZ vs. UvA general information disclosure (about CSR activities).
The results in table 3 show that information source has a significant effect on customers’ willingness to disclose personal information. Model 1 already showed that there is a
significant difference of general information disclosure by the UvA compared to the RVNZ on customers’ willingness to disclose. Table 5 also shows a significant difference between specific information disclosed by the RVNZ and specific information disclosed by the
Willingness to disclose (personal) information CC + general disclosure by RVNZ vs. UvA general disclosure Trust Privacy Concerns
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employee on willingness to disclose. In order to determine if information disclosed by the Employee or the UvA, regardless of the type of information, has a significant effect on customers’ willingness to disclose, a logistic regression analysis was executed. This analysis shows that the employee & UvA conditions better predict if people are willing to disclose personal information, compared to the control and RVNZ disclosure conditions.
Table 6: Results of the logistic regression analysis
for information source. N = 221
95% CI for Odds Ratio
B (SE) Lower Odds Ratio Upper
Included
Constant -1.79 (.30)
Employee (0 = CC/RVNZ, 1 = Employee/UvA) .75* (.36) 1.05 2.13 4.30
R2 =.02 (Cox & Snell), .03 (Nagelkerke). Modelχ2 (1) = 4.67 *p <.05.
According to hypothesis H5, privacy concerns mediate the relationship between information disclosure and customers willingness to disclose. In other words, it can be argued that information disclosure, can decrease privacy concerns and as a consequence can increase people’s willingness to disclose. It is argued that this mediation effect is in particular seen when specific information is disclosed, since this has already been shown by Zimmer et al. (2010).
To find out if people are more willing to disclose personal information when they are given information about the intentions of the data collector compared to not receiving any
information or some general information, this relationship is tested. Trust is also taken into account, since the type of information disclosure may affect trust, in other words: the effect of specific information disclosure on trust is possibly different, compared to the effect of general information disclosure on trust.
The results of this Process regression analysis (Hayes, 2013) shown in model 2, show that receiving some specific information about a company, can reduce trust in the organization in comparison to not receiving any information or some general information about CSR
activities (p =.01). Trust however, does not significantly influence willingness to disclose (p >.05). The relationship is however nearly significant. Next to this, receiving information about the intentions of the company RVNZ, did not influence privacy concerns (p >.05).
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β = - .21, p = .01 β = 1.02, p = .07
β = .17 p = .70
β = .18, p = .35 β = -.77, p = .000
Model 2: Schematic overview of executed regressions, control + general disclosure group vs. specific information disclosure groups (about intentions RVNZ).
This model thus supports the earlier findings: trust and privacy concerns do not mediate the effect of organizational information disclosure on willingness to disclose. Next to this, there is no direct effect of specific information disclosure on willingness to disclose personal
information (p >.05). However, the relationship between privacy concerns and willingness to disclose is significant (p <.01), what means that when privacy concerns increase, the
willingness to disclose decreases.
Willingness to disclose (personal) information Control condition + general information disclosure vs. specific disclosure Trust Privacy Concerns
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5. Conclusion and Discussion
In this chapter the main question is answered. The results from chapter 4 will be used to answer the main question. After the conclusion of this research is given, the theoretical and practical implications of this research will be explained. Finally, the limitations of this research will be discussed and suggestions for future research will be provided.
5.1 The conclusion of this research
The main questions that has been drafted at the beginning of this research was:
‘Does corporate transparency induce a process of reciprocity which induces consumers to share their personal data with the organization? How should organizations share information as to maximize this effect?’
The findings in this research show that only in two manipulation conditions, more people were willing to share their personal information with the RVNZ: in the UvA general condition and in the employee specific condition. Hypothesis H1 is therefore partially supported.
Information source has proven to be quite relevant with regard to whether or not people are willing to disclose their personal information, such that more people were willing to share their personal information when they were given information by the UvA or employee. Hypothesis H2 can therefore be supported. These findings support the findings of multiple researchers, who showed that how disclosed information is perceived as well as its effect on attitudes and behavior, depends on who discloses the information (Eisend, 2006; Sparks et al., 2013; Wilson & Sherrel, 1993). The conducted analysis showed that information type did not have an effect on willingness to disclose personal information, as well as that there was no significant difference between general and specific information disclosure on willingness to disclose personal information. Therefore hypothesis H3 should be rejected.
No mediating effect of trust was found between information disclosure and customers’ willingness to disclose personal information. Hypothesis H4 should therefore be rejected. A significant effect was however found between information disclosure and trust. Providing customers with specific information may thus in some cases reduce trust in the organization, compared to not providing them with any information or providing them with some general information. The regression analyses that included the mediator privacy concerns, all showed that privacy concerns do not mediate the effect of information disclosure on willingness to disclose personal information. Hypothesis H5 can therefore be rejected. Since a significant negative relationship was found between privacy concerns and willingness to disclose, it can
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be concluded that when privacy concerns decrease, people are more willing to disclose their personal information. This is consistent with the findings of Zimmer et al. (2010), who found a negative relationship between privacy concerns and intent to disclose.
Taken together, the overall results suggest that customers, in some cases, are more willing to disclose their personal information to a company, when information about the company is disclosed, due to a process of reciprocity. Reciprocity can thus play a role in customers’ willingness to disclose, something that supports the findings of Kanagaretnam et al. (2009), Miller & Kenny (1986) and Moon (2000). The relationship is however dependent on the source of the information disclosure. As to maximize the effect of corporate transparency on customers’ willingness to disclose personal data, the information should be shared by an employee of the company or by an institution as the UvA. The type of information is not very relevant, it is more important to think about the source that provides the information.
5.2 Theoretical and practical implications
The current research has investigated the role of reciprocity in the company-consumer information disclosure relationship. The results of this research show that reciprocity can work as a mechanism to influence customers’ willingness to disclose their personal
information to a company. Current knowledge of transparency and self-disclosure is expanded with this research, since the results show that providing information by the UvA or employee can increase people’s willingness to disclose, compared to a situation where people received no information at all or some information by the company itself.
Providing information about the intentions of the data collector did not have a significant effect on willingness to disclose, compared to providing some general information about the company. This finding is inconsistent with the findings of Zimmer et al. (2010), since they showed that individuals were more likely to disclose their personal information when the intentions of the data collector were revealed. In particular cases it did however matter if people received specific information or general information about the company. Further research is necessary to prove the effect of specific information disclosure on willingness to disclose.
The results of this study do also not correspond with previous findings that the effect of information disclosure on willingness to disclose can be mediated by trust and privacy concerns (Zimmer et al., 2010). Therefore another suggestion for future research is to
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investigate if the effect of corporate information disclosure on customers’ willingness to disclose their personal information can be mediated by trust or privacy concerns.
This research shows that reciprocity can be used as a mechanism by managers and in companies to motivate people, especially customers, to disclose their personal data with the company. In particular, providing general information by the UvA or specific information by the employee are the best possibilities according to the results from this study, to increase customers’ willingness to disclose.
5.3 Discussion
In this research there have been made choices where one can have some reservations with. Some of the main issues have to do with the content of the survey.
The survey started with 7 personal questions and 10 questions related to the personal health of the respondents. We received multiple e-mails and reactions that said that people did not trust the survey since they directly had to fill out some (very) personal information. For that reason, people told us that they prematurely dropped out, something that was also seen in Qualtrics. Future research should take this into account and find a solution to people dropping out untimely.
Another issue of the survey was the length. People felt that the survey took too much
time/was too long. Something that came forward in the results chapter, since 287 people filled out the survey, but only 179 finished the survey, something that did not benefit the results of this survey. It reduced the amount of usable surveys/respondents and therefore the sample on which the analysis was based was less representative of the population.
Next to this, there were 9 different conditions + control condition (CC), where a respondent could be placed in. The conditions (with the exception of the CC) provided the respondent with information disclosure, in other words, some information about the RVNZ with regard to their CSR activities, their data collection intentions or both. However, comments showed that several people did not read the information provided and were thus not manipulated as
intended. This may have ensured that less people were willing to disclose their personal profile or FB data, than when all people would have read the texts. A suggestion for future research is to shorten the questionnaire, especially the amount of personal related questions and the manipulation texts if possible.
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With regard to the analysis, quite some variables had to be made, to be able to execute the regression analyses. Those are set up at the discretion of the researcher. To determine if these variables are set up correctly and if the analyses in chapter 4 were correctly executed, this research should be repeated, to see if the drawn conclusions are valid.
As shown in table 2, only 3 people from the total respondents were willing to give some Facebook data to the RVNZ. There were however quite some people who filled out that they did not have Facebook. This is quite meaningless, since it does not tell us if they were willing to share their FB data if they had an account or not. In subsequent research this should
definitely be taken into account, by for example, giving people the option to choose ‘If I had Facebook, I am (or am not) willing to share my data with the RVNZ’.
Table 2 in the Results chapter also shows that almost 50% of the respondents in the UvA, general condition, were willing to share their personal profile. Future research should definitely investigate this outcome. Information sharing by another company or important body as the UvA, may trigger reciprocity and therefore customer’s willingness to disclose personal information. If this is the case, companies should deploy 3rd parties when they need customer data.
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