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Second, a three-item perceived risk scale
(Jarvenpaa & Tractinsky, 1999) was modified
to reflect risk relating to online purchasing and
subscription. Specifically, two items (the first per-
taining to safety of using a credit card to purchase
online and the second to risk online compared to
other ways of purchasing) were slightly modified
to reflect online purchasing risk. A new item
pertaining to perceptions of risk in revealing
personal details online if requested was included
to tap concerns relating to Web site subscription.
While the original scale had a Cronbach's alpha
of 0.65, the modified scale had a Cronbach's alpha
of 0.58, which was a little low (Nunnally, 1989)
but was accepted as satisfactory for the purposes
of this exploratory research. Third, two questions
were developed to ascertain whether respondents
had purchased online or disclosed personal infor-
mation to subscribe to a Web site. These items
were aggregated into a single item termed “online
subscription and purchasing” further discussed
below. The preliminary instrument was pilot
tested and reviewed for clarity by postgraduate
students and the chapter's authors and accepted
without further revision.
The survey instructions informed partici-
pants that the aim of the research was to assess
awareness of online privacy issues regarding
requested personal information when subscribing
to Web sites or purchasing over the Internet and
their perception of any risks involved in sharing
information online. All privacy and risk items
were measured using five-point Likert scales,
and questions relating to online subscription and
purchase behavior were dichotomous.
A construct, representing online subscrip-
tion and purchasing transactions that involve
disclosure of personal information, was devel-
oped. Online subscription is a form of consumer
transaction that can be described as a “secondary
exchange” where there is a nonmonetary exchange
of personal information for perceived value from
the online organisation in terms of quality service,
prize incentives, or relationship building (Culnan
& Bies, 2003). Online purchasing, on the other
hand, is the “first exchange” whereby money or
other goods is given in exchange for goods or
services (Culnan & Bies, 2003). Nonetheless, in
the online environment, personal information
must also be disclosed in the “first exchange.”
Two dichotomous variables:
online subscriptions
and
online purchasing
, which provided data relat-
ing to whether respondents actually subscribed
and purchased online were combined to form a
construct with ordinal properties representing
“no online subscriptions or purchases,” “online
subscriptions only,” “online purchases only,” and
“online subscriptions and purchases.”
study results
study 1: dimensionality of e-privacy
Privacy dimensions were developed by submit-
ting 12 privacy items to a principal components
procedure with a varimax rotation. This analysis
yielded three orthogonal factors with eigenvalues
greater than 1.0, explaining 52.21% of the vari-
ance within these data. Factor loadings of less
than 0.3 were omitted from the privacy factors
illustrated in Table 1. The final analysis therefore
included 11 items, as one did not load above 0.3
on any of the factors.
The grouping of statements provided insights
into the interpretation of the three privacy fac-
tors. As shown in Table 1, four items loaded on
factor 1, which explains 21.3% of total variance.
Factor I, labeled
privacy aware
, is reflective of
consumer knowledge and sensitivity regarding
the risks of sharing selected personal information
online. It consists of four items: selective about
information provision, awareness of sensitivity of
tax file number, and awareness of sensitivity of
mother's maiden name and perception, compa-
nies require excessive personal information. The
privacy aware
factor is illustrative of users who
guard information, such as their mother's maiden
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