Privacy, Culture, and Information Disclosure. A Configurational Analysis of the Role of Uncertainty Avoidance and Individualism

ABSTRACT

The use of mobility services has increased the volume of data that consumers share with organizations. Despite consumers being aware of the risks they assume when sharing their personal information, they continue to do so through a process explained by the privacy paradox. The explanation for this behavior can be found in how consumers value the benefits they receive as a reward for sharing their personal data. Furthermore, the willingness to share personal data is conditioned by the cultural context. Therefore, this work addresses two research questions based on available data for a sample of 120 cities worldwide from the Smart City Index and Hofstede cultural indicators. The first study explains how expected benefits influence the willingness to share personal information. The second study explores how uncertainty avoidance and individualism interact with the benefits associated with the privacy calculus in explaining the willingness to share personal information. To this end, the work applies Set‐theoretic Multi‐Method Research—applying process tracing to the solutions generated with qualitative comparative analysis, and the two‐stage approach. The results indicate that a single configuration of conditions explains individuals' willingness to share personal information and is consistent with the presence of a causal mechanism. By contrast, three configurations explain the absence of willingness to disclose personal information. While uncertainty avoidance moderates how privacy calculus–related benefits explain willingness to disclose personal information, individualism interacts with these benefits. The digitalization of transport services reconfigures the user–system relationship into a cooperative exchange based on data sharing to enhance service performance.