Understanding the Strategic Consequences of Customer Privacy Concerns: A Meta-Analytic Review

Abstract

Despite noteworthy advances in theory and retail practice, the extant scholarship on customer privacy concerns is scattered across a wide range of academic domains and remains fragmented, in terms of both conceptual breadth and empirical results. This lack of convergence creates a pertinent need for a comprehensive synthesis to guide to further theory-building and managerial practice with respect to customer concerns about privacy. Unlike earlier meta-analysis studies, this paper reports on a comprehensive meta-analytic review of customer privacy concerns literature, which focuses on strategic retail-relevant variables. Based on 1,103 effects in 304 papers, we offer several key insights that are pertinent to retail scholars and managers who wish to empirically capture and mitigate the impact of customer privacy concerns. We identify two substantive moderators—retail channels and data sensitivity—that wield significant influence in attenuating or strengthening the impact of customer privacy concerns on key retail outcomes. Retail researchers should also consider the significant influences of the research setting, including region, measurement scale, participant selection, and research design. Considering these findings, we conclude the paper by offering a future research agenda that identifies key areas requiring further scrutiny.