Information Technology Reference
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management implications and
Future research
Expert household end users may respond to the
provisions of detailed information and clarifica-
tion about the steps a company will take to guard
their personal information. For example, if com-
panies wish to develop a long-term relationship
with expert end users, they may need to provide,
for example, details during a transaction of how
the information is to be used and then discarded
after each individual transaction. Research is
needed to investigate expert household end us-
ers' information requirements and their desired
level of control over their personal information. It
seems certain that the standard minimal privacy
policy notices attached to Web sites will neces-
sarily be superseded by much more targeted and
sophisticated documents. Ultimately, improved
privacy protection strategies and procedures are
likely to enhance a company's competitive posi-
tion because it will be able to retain customers
who perceive lower levels of risk and are willing
to enter longer term partnerships.
While this exploratory research has gone
some way towards elucidating the dimension-
ality of privacy concerns of expert household
end users and understanding the relationships
among privacy concerns, perceived risk, and
online subscription and purchasing, a more
comprehensive study needs to be undertaken to
confirm these findings. In addition, research is
required to test the cross-national validity of the
model. As highlighted above, research is also
needed to understand expert household end users'
information requirements and their desired level
of control over the information provided during
e-commerce and other transactions. Finally, the
research agenda in this field would also benefit
from a study on the perceived locus of risk and
whether it is at the level of the vendor company,
the product, or in the transaction medium itself.
More specific information such as this will al-
low management to direct its risk minimisation
strategies to the correct target and have greater
impact for the expert end user.
Managers must increased their understanding
of privacy issues and improve their response
to consumer privacy concerns. The telephone,
television, and now the Internet are just some of
the technologies available to managers who are
newly responsible for privacy related policies and
initiatives. Internet technologies are, of course,
especially important for managers because they
transform the way in which goods and services
are bought and sold and provide new opportuni-
ties for developing and maintaining longer term
relationships with household end users. However,
it these relationships are to be sustained, household
end users need to be reassured that organisational
collection and use of personal data will not involve
invasions of privacy.
As suggested by the results in the present study,
expert household end users may be concerned
about how personal information is collected,
shared, and used by companies in today's mar-
ketplace. The important question for managers
in the future is how to respond to these issues.
Currently, management reactions to privacy con-
cerns include a range of activities such as adding
privacy policies to Web sites, use of encryption
methods, and security protocols to guard against
misuse of sensitive and private information. Find-
ings from this study suggest that managers need
to consider whether technical security solutions
are the answer to resolving consumer concerns
about privacy online. As Katz and Rice (2002)
states, a number of encryption methods are flawed
and anonymous remailer and other anonymity-
guaranteeing services have been compromised
by browser software. It appears that expert users
may have become aware of such weaknesses in
current technical approaches to Internet security.
Sykes et al.'s (2006) research is also supportive
of more targeted initiatives in privacy protection
development by firms.
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