Abstract
New communication platforms have enabled firms to collect personal data on their consumers and provide more personalized services. Personalized service facilitates interpersonal communication and interactions based on consumers’ personal and preference information, and therefore constitutes a way to improve firm–customer relationships. However, such personalized services may be vulnerable to privacy issues. This study investigates the effects of personalized e-mail messages (an archetypal example of personalized service) on consumers’ risk perceptions and two moderating variables: consumers’ control and message intimacy. In three experiments, we show that an increase in the level of personalization in e-mail messages increases consumers’ privacy risk perceptions. However, giving consumers more control over their personal information and adding intimate cues to e-mail messages moderate the negative effects of personalized e-mail messages on their privacy risk perceptions. The study provides important implications for both academics and managers in developing and employing personalized service in new media communication.
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Notes
In 2011, KISA (Korea Internet and Security Agency), South Korea’s government agency, established the Enforcement Decree of the Personal Information Protection Act. This act provides guidelines and principles on how firms and individuals should treat potentially sensitive personal information.
The “personalized mortgage plan” used in Experiments 1 and 2 might not be relevant to undergraduate students. To find a more relevant simulation, we asked 21 students how important the following categories were (1) buying a house, (2) buying a car, (3) traveling to Europe, and (4) preparing for marriage. Marriage was the most important to them, followed by buying a house, traveling to Europe, and buying a car. Therefore, we selected a moderately involved situation (i.e., traveling to Europe) and used “personalized student loan for travel.”
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The first author acknowledges that this work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2011-332-B00152).
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The first author of this article is Ji Hee Song and Sahangsoon Kim is the corresponding author.
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Song, J.H., Kim, H.Y., Kim, S. et al. Effects of personalized e-mail messages on privacy risk: Moderating roles of control and intimacy. Mark Lett 27, 89–101 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-014-9315-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11002-014-9315-0