Living in a big data world: Predicting mobile commerce activity through privacy concerns

Abstract

As advertisers increasingly rely on mobile-based data, consumer perceptions regarding the collection and use of such data becomes of great interest to scholars and practitioners. Recent industry data suggests advertisers seeking to leverage personal data offered via mobile devices would be wise to acknowledge and address the privacy concerns held by mobile users. Utilizing the theoretical foundation of communication privacy management (CPM), the current study investigates commonly understood privacy concerns such as collection, control, awareness, unauthorized secondary use, improper access and a newly adapted dimension of location tracking, trust in mobile advertisers, and attitudes toward mobile commerce, to predict mobile commerce engagement. Data from this study indicate that control, unauthorized access, trust in mobile advertisers, and attitude toward mobile commerce significantly predicted 43% of the variance in mobile commerce activity.