The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/1468-4527.htm

The effect of information privacy Effect of

information
concern on users’ social privacy
concern
shopping intention
Tao Zhou
School of Management, Hangzhou Dianzi University, Hangzhou, China
Received 11 September 2019
Revised 27 January 2020
Abstract 13 April 2020
7 June 2020
Purpose – The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of information privacy concern on users’ social Accepted 9 June 2020
shopping intention.
Design/methodology/approach – Based on the 340 valid responses collected from a survey, structural
equation modeling (SEM) was employed to examine the research model.
Findings – The results indicated that while disposition to privacy positively affects privacy concern, both
reputation and laws negatively affect privacy concern, which in turn decreases social shopping intention. In
addition, trust partially mediates the effect of privacy concern on social shopping intention.
Research limitations/implications – The results imply that social commerce companies need to mitigate
users’ privacy concern in order to facilitate their shopping behavior.
Originality/value – This research disclosed that privacy concern receives a tripartite influence from users
(disposition to privacy), platforms (reputation) and governments (laws). The results help us gain a complete
understanding of information privacy concern mitigation in social shopping.
Keywords Privacy concern, Social shopping, Trust, Privacy risk
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
E-commerce has been developing rapidly in the world. A few e-commerce companies such as
Amazon, Alibaba and JD have achieved great success. A recent report indicated that about
74.8% of Internet users (639m) have conducted online shopping in China (CNNIC, 2019). This
demonstrates the great e-commerce market. At the same time, social media has been popular
among users. Facebook, Twitter and WeChat represent the most reputable social media
products among them. In addition, social media has been integrated with e-commerce to
promote online transactions, which is called social commerce. Compared to traditional
e-commerce, social commerce is built on social networks among users and can create great
value for enterprises. Thus, social commerce has received great attention from businesses. For
example, Facebook has launched F-commerce, which allows companies to build online stores in
the platform. Alibaba, which is the largest e-commerce company in China, has acquired Weibo,
which is a leading micro-blog product. JD, which is a reputable e-commerce company, has built
cooperation with WeChat, which is the largest Chinese social networking platform. However,
social commerce also involves significant privacy risk (Wang and Herrando, 2019). Due to the
disclosure of much personal information related to identification, payment and locations, users
may have concerns on their information privacy (Yeh et al., 2018). They doubt whether social
commerce companies properly collect and use their information. This may increase their
perceived risk and decrease their transaction intention.
Previous research has examined social commerce user behavior from multiple
perspectives, such as trust (Chen et al., 2019; Cheng et al., 2019; Sharma et al., 2019), social

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (71771069, 71831006, Online Information Review
71810107003) and NSFC-Zhejiang Joint Fund for the Integration of Industrialization and Informatization © Emerald Publishing Limited
1468-4527
(U1509220). DOI 10.1108/OIR-09-2019-0298
OIR support (Yahia et al., 2018; Molinillo et al., 2020; Tajvidi et al., 2020) and perceived value (Hu
et al., 2016; Sun et al., 2016; Chung et al., 2017). It has also identified the effect of privacy
assurance on users’ social commerce intention (Wang and Herrando, 2019). However, it has
seldom examined the effect of privacy concern, which may represent a significant inhibitor of
users’ social shopping (Huang et al., 2017). In addition, how to mitigate privacy concern in
social commerce remains a question. This may undermine our understanding of social
commerce user behavior.
The purpose of this research is to examine the effect of information privacy concern on
users’ social shopping intention. We investigated privacy concern from a tripartite
perspective, which includes users, platforms and governments. That is, we examined the
effect of disposition to privacy (users), reputation (platforms) and laws (governments) on
privacy concern. By integrating these three perspectives, we expect that the results can
provide a full understanding of privacy concern mitigation. In addition, following Stewart
and Segars (2002), we measured privacy concern as a second-order factor composed of four
factors: collection, errors, improper access and secondary use. We included trust and privacy
risk as the mediators to examine their effects on social shopping intention.
This research makes three contributions. First, this research identified the effect of information
privacy concern on users’ social shopping intention. This extends previous research, which has
mainly examined the enablers such as trust, social support and perceived value, and has seldom
considered the inhibitors of social commerce user behavior. Second, we examined privacy concern
from a tripartite perspective, which includes users (disposition to privacy), platforms (reputation)
and governments (laws). The results help us gain a complete understanding of information privacy
concern mitigation in social shopping. Third, we found that laws are an effective institutional
mechanism that decreases privacy concern. This extends extant research, which has reported the
effect of structural assurances such as privacy seals on privacy concern.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. We propose the research model and
hypotheses in the next section. Section 3 reports instrument development and data collection.
Section 4 reports results, and section 5 discusses these results. We present the implications
and limitations in section 6.

2. Research model and hypotheses

2.1 Social commerce user behavior
As an emerging model, social commerce user behavior has received considerable attention
from the information systems researchers. Especially, social shopping represents a typical
user behavior in social commerce. Sun et al. (2019) noted that live streaming engagement
affects social commerce users’ purchase intention. Ko (2018) suggested that both social and
commercial desires influence social shopping intention. In addition to these enablers,
inhibitors such as perceived commerce risk also reduce users’ intention to buy in social
commerce (Farivar et al., 2018).
Due to the perceived uncertainty and risk, trust has been found to be a significant
determinant of user behavior. Fu et al. (2018) stated that trust transfer affects users’ shopping
of movie tickets. Similarly, Sharma et al. (2019) noted that both trust in the Internet and trust
in firms can be transferred to consumers’ trust in social commerce. In addition, both
institution-based trust (Wang and Herrando, 2019) and system trust (Cheng et al., 2019) were
also reported to affect social shopping intention.
In social commerce, the disclosure of personal information may arouse users’ privacy risk.
Lin et al. (2017) noted that privacy risk affects users’ continuance of social networking sites
(SNS). Koohikamali et al. (2019) argued that the trade-off between privacy risk and perceived
benefits determines users’ continued use of social networking applications. Similarly, Liu and
Wang (2018) found that the trade-off between privacy risk and social rewards affects self-
disclosure intention on SNS. Chang et al. (2018) noted that perceived effectiveness of privacy Effect of
policy helps mitigate privacy risk. information
Other research has identified the effect of social support and perceived value on social
commerce user behavior. The frequent exchange of social support may help facilitate users’
privacy
behavior. Aladwani (2018) reported that social support quality influences a consumer’s intention concern
to buy in social commerce. Tajvidi et al. (2020) found that social support affects consumers’
intention to cocreate brand value. Molinillo et al. (2020) noted that social support affects customer
engagement, which in turn determines customer loyalty toward social commerce websites. In
addition, perceived value, which reflects a trade-off between benefits and costs, also has an effect
on social commerce user behavior. Hu et al. (2016) found that both utilitarian and social value
affects users’ social shopping intention. Similarly, Chung et al. (2017) noted that impulsiveness
affects both hedonic and utilitarian value in social commerce. Sun et al. (2016) suggested that
social climate influences social value, hedonic value, self-discovery value and informational value.
As evidenced by these studies, they have examined social commerce user behavior from
the perspectives of trust, social support and perceived value. However, the effect of privacy
concern has seldom been examined. This research tries to examine the determinants of
privacy concern and its effect on social shopping intention.

2.2 The determinants of privacy concern

Disposition to privacy reflects a user’s tendency to value information privacy (Xu et al., 2011). It
may be developed based on a user’s personality or previous experience (Weinberger et al., 2017).
For example, if a user has a neuroticism personality or has been the victim of privacy misuse, the
user may develop a strong privacy disposition (Gazit et al., 2019). He or she is very sensitive about
information privacy and attaches great importance to personal information. This may lead to his
or her high privacy concern associated with social commerce. In contrast, a user that has low
privacy disposition may have less concern on information privacy. Previous research has noted
the effect of disposition to privacy on perceived control (Liu and Wang, 2018). Thus, we suggest,
H1. Disposition to privacy is positively related to privacy concern.
Reputation reflects users’ evaluation of a social commerce platform (Zhao et al., 2018). A good
reputation acts as a strong trust signal, which may alleviate users’ privacy concern. That is,
users believe that reputable platforms have the ability and integrity enough to properly
collect, store and use personal information. As a good reputation creation reflects a long-time
process (Zhang et al., 2017), users believe that platforms will not act opportunistically to
misuse their information. Thus,
H2. Reputation is negatively related to privacy concern.
Laws reflect that governments have enforced legislations to protect information privacy
(Wirtz et al., 2007). For example, the European Union has implemented General Data
Protection Regulation (GDPR) to ensure privacy. These laws always specify which
information can be collected and how it can be used by companies. They also list the
sanctions on privacy violation. The laws can help reduce users’ privacy anxiety and mitigate
their privacy concern. That is, they believe that laws can effectively protect their information
from illegal collection and use. Thus, we suggest,
H3. Laws are negatively related to privacy concern.

2.3 Privacy concern

Privacy concern reflects a user’s concern on information disclosure (Malhotra et al., 2004). It is
a concept consisting of multiple factors such as collection, errors, improper access and
OIR secondary use (Smith et al., 1996). Due to the correlations among these factors, privacy
concern is also measured as a second-order factor (Stewart and Segars, 2002). We adopted
this measurement to keep the research model parsimonious.
Due to its significance, privacy concern has been extensively examined in previous
research. Koohikamali et al. (2019) found that the trade-off between privacy concern and
perceived benefit affects a user’s adoption of social networking applications. Guo et al. (2020)
noted that both privacy assurance and relationship closeness affect privacy concern, which
further determines users’ participation in SNS. Other research has examined privacy concern
in the contexts of online health communities (Kordzadeh and Warren, 2017; Zhang et al., 2018)
and mobile applications download (Gu et al., 2017; Wottrich et al., 2018).
Among four factors of privacy concern, collection reflects that social commerce platforms
properly collect users’ information. Users often doubt that platforms may collect too much
information on them. Errors reflect that platforms have adopted measures to ensure data
accuracy. Improper access means that platforms need to ensure information security and
prevent unauthorized access (Obrien et al., 2018). Secondary use means that platforms cannot
share users’ information with third parties without their consent. These four factors reflect a
user’s concern on the privacy practices of platforms.
When a user has high privacy concern, he or she may feel lack of control over personal
information (Zhu and Bao, 2018). The user doubts whether a platform has the capability and
integrity enough to ensure information privacy. This may decrease the user’s trust and
increase privacy risk (Kim and Kim, 2018). Users also worry about the potential losses
associated with information leakage and abuse (Khalil et al., 2019). The high privacy concern
may exacerbate this perceived risk as users are unaware of platforms’ privacy practices. In
addition, privacy concern may undermine a user’s social shopping intention. When users
have privacy concern, they doubt whether companies collect too much information and use
their information without their knowledge. Users may feel great uncertainty and risk
associated with self-disclosure, which in turn decreases their shopping intention. Guo et al.
(2020) also found that privacy concern affects users’ participation on SNS. Thus, we propose,
H4. Privacy concern is negatively related to trust.
H5. Privacy concern is positively related to privacy risk.
H6. Privacy concern is negatively related to social shopping intention.

2.4 Trust and privacy risk

Trust reflects a willingness to be in vulnerability based on the positive expectation toward
another party’s future behavior (Mayer et al., 1995). It often includes ability, integrity and
benevolence (Xu et al., 2016). Ability means that a platform has the expertise and knowledge
to protect information privacy. Integrity means that a platform keeps its promises and does
not deceive users. Benevolence means that a platform is concerned with users’ interests, not
just their own benefits. As noted earlier in the literature view, trust is a significant factor
affecting social commerce user behavior. Due to the perceived uncertainty including seller
uncertainty and product uncertainty (Bai et al., 2015), users need to build trust in order to
mitigate the uncertainty and ensure their transactions. Thus, we state,
H7. Trust is positively related to social shopping intention.
Privacy risk reflects the potential threat and losses derived from self-disclosure (Xu et al.,
2011). For example, if users’ information is shared with third parties without their knowledge,
users may be harassed by the pushed advertisements. Further, the leakage of information
such as payment accounts may lead to the financial losses for users. Thus, when users feel
significant privacy risk, they will not conduct shopping on social commerce platforms in
order to avoid the potential losses. Lin et al. (2017) noted that privacy risk influences uses’ Effect of
continuance of SNS. Therefore, we suggest, information
H8. Privacy risk is negatively related to social shopping intention. privacy
In addition, trust may affect privacy risk. That is, when a user builds trust in social commerce concern
platforms, he or she may believe that personal information can be appropriately collected and
used. This decreases their perceived uncertainty and risk associated with information
disclosure. In other words, trust provides a subjective guarantee that users’ information is
fairly used (Guo et al., 2016). Thus, we propose,
H9. Trust is negatively related to privacy risk.
Both factors of trust and privacy risk are proposed to mediate the effect of privacy concern on
social shopping. As discussed earlier, trust may facilitate social shopping, whereas privacy
risk may undermine social shopping. To some extent, trust is an enabler of social shopping,
whereas privacy risk is an inhibitor. When users have high privacy concern, their trust may
be decreased, which further undermines their shopping intention. In contrast, when users
have high privacy concern, their perceived risk may be increased, which further undermines
their shopping intention. Thus, trust may take a positive mediating effect, whereas privacy
risk may take a negative mediating effect. By examining the mediating effects of both factors,
we can gain a complete understanding of the effect mechanism of privacy concern on social
shopping.
Figure 1 presents the research model. Following Stewart and Segars (2002), we measured
privacy concern as a second-order factor, which consists of four reflective factors: collection,
errors, improper access and secondary use. The scores of four first-order factors were used to
measure the second-order factor (Wilson and Henseler, 2007).

3. Method
The research model includes ten factors. Each factor was measured with three or four items.
All items were adapted from extant literature to improve the content validity. These items
were first translated into Chinese by a researcher. Then another researcher translated them
back into English to ensure consistency. When the instrument was developed, it was tested
among eight users that had social shopping experience. Then according to their comments,
we revised a few items to improve the understandability. The final items and their sources are
listed in the Appendix.
Items of disposition to privacy were adapted from Xu et al. (2011) to reflect a user’s
tendency to value privacy. Items of reputation were adapted from Li (2014) to reflect a
platform’s word of mouth among users. Items of laws were adapted from Wirtz et al. (2007) to

Disposition
to privacy
H1 Trust
H4 H7
H2 Privacy H9 Social
Reputation H5 shopping
concern H8
H3
Privacy risk
Laws
H6
Figure 1.
Improper Secondary Research model
Collection Errors access use
OIR measure the effectiveness of government laws to protect online privacy. Items measuring
four factors of privacy concern were adapted from Stewart and Segars (2002). Items of
collection reflect whether platforms collect too much personal information. Items of errors
reflect that platforms need to ensure data accuracy. Items of improper access reflect that
platforms need to ensure information security and prevent unauthorized access. Items of
secondary use reflect that platforms need to properly use personal information and cannot
share information with third parties. Items of trust were adapted from Dinev and Hart (2006)
to measure the reliability and competence of a platform. Items of privacy risk were adapted
from Xu et al. (2011) to measure a user’s potential losses derived from self-disclosure. Items of
social shopping intention were adapted from Chen and Shen (2015) to reflect a user’s intention
to conduct shopping based on other users’ suggestions and recommendations.
Data were collected through an online survey. We posted the survey linkage in a few SNS
such as WeChat, Weibo and QQ and invited users to fill the questionnaire based on their
favorite social commerce platform usage experience. We also encouraged users to forward
the survey linkage to their friends. We scrutinized all responses and dropped six that had
missing values. As a result, we obtained 340 valid responses. According to Chin et al. (2003), it
requires at least 200 cases when using LISREL to estimate the model. In addition, following
Christopher Westland (2010), the minimum sample size for our research model (ten factors
with 33 items) is 159. Thus, our sample is enough for the statistical analysis. Among all
respondents, 50.9% were male and 49.1% were female. In terms of age, about 41.2% were
between 19 and 24 years old, and 39.4% were between 25 and 35 years old. The frequently
used social commerce platforms include WeChat, Weibo and JD community, which represent
a few well-known Chinese social commerce communities.
To examine the nonresponse bias, we compared early respondents (the first two weeks of
data collection) and late respondents (the last two weeks). The results indicated that no
significant differences exist between both samples in terms of gender, age and experience. In
addition, our sample characteristics are similar to those of the Internet population (CNNIC,
2019). For example, in our sample, 50.9% were male and 49.1% were female, which is
comparable to 52.4% of male and 47.6% of female in the population. These results suggest
that nonresponse bias is not a problem in the research (Armstrong and Overton, 1977).
We conducted two tests to examine the common method variance. First, we performed a
Harman’s single-factor test (Podsakoff et al., 2003). The results indicated that the largest
variance explained by an individual factor is 8.99%. Thus, none of the factors can explain the
majority of the variance. Second, we modeled all items as the indicators of a factor representing
the method effect and re-estimated the model (Malhotra et al., 2006). The results indicated a poor
fitness. For example, the goodness of fit index (GFI) is 0.614 (<0.90). The root mean square error
of approximation (RMSEA) is 0.134 (>0.08). The results of both tests suggested that common
method variance is not a significant problem in our research. Further, when developing the
instrument, we adopted scale item trimming method (Peng et al., 2006) to reduce common
method variance. For example, we measured reputation with items adapted from Li (2014). We
found that an item “This website has a good reputation” is similar to another item “This website
has a good reputation compared to other rival websites.” We determined to delete the first item
in order to avoid duplication and decrease common method variance.

4. Results
Data analysis includes two steps. First, we examined the measurement model to test
reliability and validity. Then, we examined the structural model to test research hypotheses.
Before data analysis, we examined data normality. As listed in Table 1, for each item, both
skewness and kurtosis values are below 2, suggesting good normality (Curran et al., 1996;
Szekely and Rizzo, 2005).
 Standardized
Effect of
Factor Item Skewness Kurtosis loading AVE CR Alpha information
privacy
Disposition to privacy DTP1 0.151 0.975 0.917 0.69 0.87 0.86
(DTP) DTP2 0.245 1.304 0.693 concern
DTP3 0.236 1.066 0.863
Reputation (REP) REP1 0.414 0.760 0.816 0.65 0.85 0.85
REP2 0.526 0.875 0.753
REP3 0.444 0.940 0.852
Laws (LAW) LAW1 0.339 1.120 0.791 0.59 0.81 0.81
LAW2 0.218 0.830 0.747
LAW3 0.306 0.778 0.758
Collection (COL) COL1 0.010 0.022 0.670 0.53 0.82 0.81
COL2 0.099 1.294 0.700
COL3 0.272 1.204 0.786
COL4 0.162 0.956 0.751
Errors (ERR) ERR1 0.025 0.827 0.804 0.61 0.86 0.86
ERR2 0.221 1.140 0.751
ERR3 0.110 1.283 0.770
ERR4 0.121 1.146 0.803
Improper access (IA) IA1 0.317 0.692 0.685 0.51 0.76 0.76
IA2 0.228 0.605 0.696
IA3 0.351 0.656 0.763
Secondary use (SU) SU1 0.375 0.719 0.806 0.59 0.85 0.85
SU2 0.375 1.118 0.706
SU3 0.434 0.882 0.740
SU4 0.481 0.940 0.820
Trust (TRU) TRU1 0.006 0.419 0.791 0.51 0.75 0.75
TRU2 0.005 0.845 0.641
TRU3 0.154 0.949 0.694
Privacy risk (PRR) PRR1 0.144 0.545 0.883 0.63 0.83 0.83
PRR2 0.168 0.882 0.718
PRR3 0.177 0.819 0.766 Table 1.
Social shopping intention SSI1 0.225 0.793 0.689 0.51 0.76 0.76 Standardized item
(SSI) SSI2 0.086 0.907 0.716 loadings, AVE, CR and
SSI3 0.140 1.138 0.735 alpha values

First, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis to examine the validity of the measurement
model, which includes convergent validity and discriminant validity. Convergent validity
measures whether items can effectively reflect their corresponding factor, whereas discriminant
validity measures whether two factors are statistically different. As listed in Table 1, most item
loadings are larger than 0.7. Each AVE (the average variance extracted) exceeds 0.5, and CR
(composite reliability) exceeds 0.7. This indicates the good convergent validity (Gefen et al.,
2000). In addition, all Cronbach’s alpha values are larger than 0.7, suggesting good reliability.
To examine the discriminant validity, we compared the square root of AVE and factor
correlation coefficients. As listed in Table 2, for each factor, the square root of AVE is
significantly larger than its correlation coefficients with other factors, suggesting good
discriminant validity.
Second, we adopted structural equation modeling (SEM) software LISREL to estimate the
model. As a covariance-based SEM, LISREL can estimate the model that has multiple latent
variables. It can estimate both measurement model and structural model simultaneously.
This decreases estimation errors and provides more accurate results. Thus, it has significant
advantages over the traditional regression analysis (Gefen et al., 2000). LISREL has been
OIR widely used in the information systems research to examine user behavior. This research
applies it to examine social shopping intention. Figure 2 presents the results. Table 3 lists the
recommended and actual values of a few indices. As listed in the table, except GFI that is
slightly lower than the recommended value, other fit indices have better actual values than
the recommended values. The explained variance of privacy concern, trust, privacy risk and
social shopping intention is 63.8, 23.3, 46.9 and 24.3%, respectively.
We also conducted a post-hoc analysis to examine the mediating effects of both trust and
privacy risk on the relationship between privacy concern and social shopping intention
(Baron and Kenny, 1986). As listed in Table 4, trust partially mediates the effect of privacy
concern on social shopping intention, whereas privacy risk does not as it has no effect on
social shopping intention.

5. Discussion
As shown in Figure 2, except H8, other hypotheses are supported. The results indicated that
while disposition to privacy positively affects privacy concern, both reputation and laws
negatively affect privacy concern. These three factors explained a majority of the variance
(63.8%) of privacy concern. Among them, reputation has the largest effect (γ 5 0.39) on
privacy concern. This suggests that a good reputation can effectively alleviate users’ concern
on information privacy. This result is consistent with Li (2014). Users believe that a well-
known platform will not use their information for other purposes as this may hurt its
reputation. Laws also have a significant effect on privacy concern. Laws reflect the

DTP REP LAW COL ERR IA SU TRU PRR SSI

DTP 0.830
REP 0.685 0.808
LAW 0.431 0.378 0.766
COL 0.455 0.492 0.442 0.728
ERR 0.369 0.373 0.378 0.528 0.782
Table 2. IA 0.388 0.464 0.376 0.537 0.537 0.715
The square root of SU 0.598 0.652 0.468 0.561 0.491 0.656 0.769
AVE (shown as italic at TRU 0.459 0.310 0.534 0.409 0.363 0.269 0.314 0.711
diagonal) and factor PRR 0.589 0.498 0.324 0.541 0.379 0.403 0.544 0.470 0.792
correlation coefficients SSI 0.328 0.126 0.471 0.343 0.326 0.363 0.339 0.378 0.299 0.714

Disposition 0.233
to privacy 0.27**
0.638 Trust
-0.48*** 0.22** 0.243
-0.39*** Privacy -0.19* Social
Reputation shopping
concern 0.57***
-0.32*** Privacy risk ns.
Laws 0.73 0.469
0.64 0.73 0.83
-0.39***
Improper Secondary
Collection Errors access use
Figure 2.
The results estimated
by LISREL Note(s): *, P < 0.05; **, P < 0.01; ***, P < 0.001; ns, not significant; Italic figures
are the explained variance
intervention of governments and may build institution-based trust, which mitigates a user’s Effect of
privacy concern. Users feel that they can turn to laws for help if their information privacy is information
violated by social commerce platforms. The results indicated that disposition to privacy leads
to privacy concern. Thus, if a user is sensitive to personal privacy, he or she may feel lack of
privacy
control (Xu et al., 2011) and have great concern on information privacy. concern
Four factors including collection, errors, improper access and secondary use have strong
loadings on the second-order factor: privacy concern. In addition, as listed in Table 2,
significant correlations exist among these four factors. This suggests that it is appropriate to
use these four factors to reflect users’ privacy concern in social commerce. Among them,
secondary use has a relatively larger loading (0.83). This indicates that users are much
concerned whether social commerce platforms appropriately use their information. To some
extent, information misuse reflects the core aspect of privacy concern. Both collection and
improper access have medium loadings (0.73). And errors have a relatively low loading (0.64).
Thus, users may have less concern on information accuracy when conducting self-disclosure.
The results indicated that privacy concern has strong effects on both trust and privacy
risk. Privacy concern may undermine a user’s assessment of the credibility of a platform. He
or she may doubt the platform’s ability and integrity to handle personal information in a
proper way (Guo et al., 2016). On the other hand, privacy concern directly leads to privacy
risk. A user with privacy concern may perceive the potential losses derived from information
disclosure. We also found that trust can help mitigate privacy risk. Thus, trust provides a
subjective guarantee that users’ information is effectively protected.
Both factors of trust and privacy concern have significant effects on social shopping
intention. These results are consistent with previous research (Lin et al., 2017; Cheng et al.,
2019). Thus, users may conduct a trade-off between trust and privacy concern to determine
their social shopping. However, we did not find the effect of privacy risk on social shopping
intention. We removed the direct path from privacy concern to social shopping intention and
re-estimated the model. The results indicated the significant effect of privacy risk on social
shopping. This suggests that the effect of privacy concern on social shopping intention
overshadows that of privacy risk. In addition, as listed in Table 4, trust partially mediates the
effect of privacy concern on social shopping intention. This highlights the need to increase
users’ trust in order to mitigate the effect of privacy concern on their behavior. However, the
results did not find the mediating effect of privacy risk. Thus, users may attach importance to

Fit indices χ 2/df GFI AGFI CFI NFI NNFI RMSEA

Recommended value <3 >0 90 >0.80 >0 90 >0.90 >0.90 <0.08

Actual value 2.14 0.869 0.898 0.972 0.951 0.968 0.058 Table 3.
Note(s): χ 2/df is the ratio between Chi-square and degrees of freedom, GFI is the Goodness of Fit Index, AGFI The recommended and
is the Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index, CFI is the Comparative Fit Index, NFI is the Normed Fit Index, NNFI is actual values of fit
the Nonnormed Fit Index, RMSEA is Root Mean Square Error of Approximation indices

Direct effect Mediating effect

Path Coef. Path Coef. Path Coef. Path Coef.

PRC → SSI 0.45*** PRC → SSI 0.40*** PRC → TRU 0.51*** TRU → SSI 0.21** Table 4.
PRC → PRR 0.68*** PRR → SSI ns. The mediating effects
Note(s): Coef. is the abbreviation of coefficient; PRC is privacy concern; SSI is social shopping intention; TRU of trust and
is trust; PRR is privacy risk. **, p < 0.01; ***, p < 0.001; ns, not significant privacy risk
OIR their concerns on information collection and use (privacy concern) rather than potential losses
(privacy risk) when determining their shopping behavior.

6. Implications and limitations

From a theoretical perspective, this research examined the effect of information privacy
concern on users’ social shopping intention. As noted earlier, although previous research has
identified the effect of trust, social support and perceived value on social commerce user
behavior, it has seldom examined privacy concern. Thus, how to mitigate privacy concern in
social commerce remains a question. This research identified the determinants of privacy
concern and its effect on users’ social shopping intention. The results improve our
understanding of social commerce user behavior. Second, we examined privacy concern
from a tripartite perspective including users (disposition to privacy), platforms (reputation) and
governments (laws). The results indicated that these three factors have significant effects on
privacy concern and they explain a majority of the variance. Thus, this research provides a
complete understanding of privacy concern determinants. Third, we found the significant
effect of laws on privacy concern. Previous research has identified the effect of institutional
structural assurances such as privacy policy and privacy seals (Xu et al., 2011; Chang et al.,
2018) on privacy concern and has seldom examined the effect of laws. Our results indicated that
laws are another institutional mechanism mitigating privacy concern. This extends our
understanding of information privacy. Fourth, we identified the significant effects of both trust
and privacy concern on social shopping intention. To some extent, trust acts as an enabler,
whereas privacy concern acts as an inhibitor. In addition, trust partially mediates the effect of
privacy concern on social shopping intention. These results highlight the necessity to build
trust in order to mitigate the effect of privacy concern on social shopping.
From a managerial perspective, our results imply that companies need to mitigate users’
privacy concern in order to facilitate their social shopping. They should create a good reputation
among users for protecting information privacy. For example, they can post privacy policy to
inform users of their privacy practices. They may also allow users to opt in and out on
information disclosure. These measures may improve the transparency and create a
trustworthy climate. On the other hand, companies need to strictly follow the laws to regulate
their privacy practices. For example, they should only collect necessary information on users.
They need to enhance identification verifications and prevent improper access to personal
information stored in the databases. Furthermore, they should not share users’ information with
third parties without users’ consent. Otherwise, they may face the punishments by the laws.
This research has a few limitations. First, we conducted this research in China, where
social commerce is developing rapidly but still in its early stage. Thus, our results need to be
generalized to other countries that had developed social commerce. Second, we examined the
effects of disposition to privacy, reputation and laws on privacy concern. Future research
may consider the possible effect of other factors, such as privacy awareness and privacy
settings. Third, we mainly conducted a cross-sectional study. A longitudinal research may
provide more insights into user behavior development.

References
Aladwani, A.M. (2018), “A quality-facilitated socialization model of social commerce decisions”,
International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 40, pp. 1-7.
Armstrong, J.S. and Overton, T.S. (1977), “Estimating nonresponse bias in mail surveys”, Journal of
Marketing Research, Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 396-402.
Bai, Y., Yao, Z. and Dou, Y.F. (2015), “Effect of social commerce factors on user purchase behavior: an
empirical investigation from renren.com”, International Journal of Information Management,
Vol. 35 No. 5, pp. 538-550.
Baron, R.M. and Kenny, D.A. (1986), “The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social Effect of
psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations”, Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 51 No. 6, pp. 1173-1182. information
Chang, Y., Wong, S.F., Libaque-Saenz, C.F. and Lee, H. (2018), “The role of privacy policy on
privacy
consumers’ perceived privacy”, Government Information Quarterly, Vol. 35 No. 3, pp. 445-459. concern
Chen, J. and Shen, X.-L. (2015), “Consumers’ decisions in social commerce context: an empirical
investigation”, Decision Support Systems, Vol. 79, pp. 55-64.
Chen, Y., Lu, Y., Wang, B. and Pan, Z. (2019), “How do product recommendations affect impulse
buying? An empirical study on WeChat social commerce”, Information and Management,
Vol. 56 No. 2, pp. 236-248.
Cheng, X., Gu, Y. and Shen, J. (2019), “An integrated view of particularized trust in social commerce:
an empirical investigation”, International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 45, pp. 1-12.
Chin, W.W., Marcolin, B.L. and Newsted, P.R. (2003), “A partial least squares latent variable modeling
approach for measuring interaction effects: results from a Monte Carlo simulation study and an
electronic-mail emotion/adoption study”, Information Systems Research, Vol. 14 No. 2, pp. 189-217.
Christopher Westland, J. (2010), “Lower bounds on sample size in structural equation modeling”,
Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, Vol. 9 No. 6, pp. 476-487.
Chung, N., Song, H.G. and Lee, H. (2017), “Consumers’ impulsive buying behavior of restaurant
products in social commerce”, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management,
Vol. 29 No. 2, pp. 709-731.
CNNIC (2019), The 44th China Statistical Report on Internet Development, China Internet Network
Information Center, Beijing, China.
Curran, P.J., West, S.G. and Finch, J.F. (1996), “The robustness of test statistics to non-normality and
specification error in confirmatory factor analysis”, Psychological Methods, Vol. 1 No. 1,
pp. 16-29.
Dinev, T. and Hart, P. (2006), “An extended privacy calculus model for e-commerce transactions”,
Information Systems Research, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 61-80.
Farivar, S., Turel, O. and Yuan, Y. (2018), “Skewing users’ rational risk considerations in Social
Commerce: an empirical examination of the role of social identification”, Information and
Management, Vol. 55 No. 8, pp. 1038-1048.
Fu, S.H., Yan, Q. and Feng, G.C. (2018), “Who will attract you? Similarity effect among users on online
purchase intention of movie tickets in the social shopping context”, International Journal of
Information Management, Vol. 40, pp. 88-102.
Gazit, T., Aharony, N. and Amichai-Hamburger, Y. (2019), “Tell me who you are and I will tell you
which SNS you use: SNSs participation”, Online Information Review, Vol. 44 No. 1, pp. 139-161.
Gefen, D., Straub, D.W. and Boudreau, M.C. (2000), “Structural equation modeling and regression:
guidelines for research practice”, Communications of the Association for Information Systems,
Vol. 4 No. 7, pp. 1-70.
Gu, J., Xu, Y., Xu, H., Zhang, C. and Ling, H. (2017), “Privacy concerns for mobile app download: an
elaboration likelihood model perspective”, Decision Support Systems, Vol. 94, pp. 19-28.
Guo, X., Zhang, X. and Sun, Y. (2016), “The privacy–personalization paradox in mHealth services
acceptance of different age groups”, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, Vol. 16,
pp. 55-65.
Guo, J., Li, N., Wu, Y. and Cui, T. (2020), “Examining help requests on social networking sites:
integrating privacy perception and privacy calculus perspectives”, Electronic Commerce
Research and Applications, Vol. 39, pp. 1-12.
Hu, X., Huang, Q., Zhong, X.P., Davison, R.M. and Zhao, D.T. (2016), “The influence of peer
characteristics and technical features of a social shopping website on a consumer’s purchase
intention”, International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 36 No. 6, pp. 1218-1230.
OIR Huang, H.Y., Chen, P.L. and Kuo, Y.C. (2017), “Understanding the facilitators and inhibitors of
individuals’ social network site usage”, Online Information Review, Vol. 41 No. 1, pp. 85-101.
Khalil, A., Zia, H. and Abdallah, S. (2019), “Privacy in the context of reciprocity: conceptualizing users’
choices”, Online Information Review, Vol. 43 No. 7, pp. 1316-1333.
Kim, S.H. and Kim, J.K. (2018), “Determinants of the adoption of mobile cloud computing services: a
principal-agent perspective”, Information Development, Vol. 34 No. 1, pp. 44-63.
Ko, H.-C. (2018), “Social desire or commercial desire? The factors driving social sharing and shopping
intentions on social commerce platforms”, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications,
Vol. 28, pp. 1-15.
Koohikamali, M., French, A.M. and Kim, D.J. (2019), “An investigation of a dynamic model of privacy
trade-off in use of mobile social network applications: a longitudinal perspective”, Decision
Support Systems, Vol. 119, pp. 46-59.
Kordzadeh, N. and Warren, J. (2017), “Communicating personal health information in virtual health
communities: an integration of privacy calculus model and affective commitment”, Journal of
the Association for Information Systems, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 45-81.
Li, Y. (2014), “The impact of disposition to privacy, website reputation and website familiarity on
information privacy concerns”, Decision Support Systems, Vol. 57, pp. 343-354.
Lin, X., Featherman, M. and Sarker, S. (2017), “Understanding factors affecting users’ social
networking site continuance: a gender difference perspective”, Information and Management,
Vol. 54 No. 3, pp. 383-395.
Liu, Z. and Wang, X. (2018), “How to regulate individuals’ privacy boundaries on social network sites:
a cross-cultural comparison”, Information and Management, Vol. 55 No. 8, pp. 1005-1023.
Malhotra, N.K., Kim, S.S. and Agarwal, J. (2004), “Internet users’ information privacy concerns(IUIPC):
the construct, the scale, and a causal model”, Information Systems Research, Vol. 15 No. 4,
pp. 336-355.
Malhotra, N.K., Kim, S.S. and Patil, A. (2006), “Common method variance in IS research: a comparison
of alternative approaches and a reanalysis of past research”, Management Science, Vol. 52
No. 12, pp. 1865-1883.
Mayer, R.C., Davis, J.H. and Schoorman, F.D. (1995), “An integrative model of organizational trust”,
Academy of Management Review, Vol. 20 No. 3, pp. 709-734.
Molinillo, S., Anaya-Sanchez, R. and Liebana-Cabanillas, F. (2020), “Analyzing the effect of social
support and community factors on customer engagement and its impact on loyalty behaviors
toward social commerce websites”, Computers in Human Behavior, Vol. 108 No. 7, pp.
1059-1065.
Obrien, P., Young, S.W.H., Arlitsch, K. and Benedict, K. (2018), “Protecting privacy on the web: a study
of HTTPS and Google Analytics implementation in academic library websites”, Online
Information Review, Vol. 42 No. 6, pp. 734-751.
Peng, T.K., Kao, Y.T. and Lin, C.-C. (2006), “Common method variance in management research: its
nature, effects, detection, and remedies”, Journal of Management, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 77-98.
Podsakoff, P.M., MacKenzie, S.B., Lee, J.Y. and Podsakoff, N.P. (2003), “Common method biases in
behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies”, Journal of
Applied Psychology, Vol. 88 No. 5, pp. 879-903.
Sharma, S., Menard, P. and Mutchler, L.A. (2019), “Who to trust? Applying trust to social commerce”,
Journal of Computer Information Systems, Vol. 59 No. 1, pp. 32-42.
Smith, H.J., Milberg, S.J. and Burke, S.J. (1996), “Information privacy: measuring individuals’ concerns
about organizational practices”, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 20 No. 2, pp. 167-196.
Stewart, K.A. and Segars, A.H. (2002), “An empirical examination of the concern for information
privacy instrument”, Information Systems Research, Vol. 13 No. 1, pp. 36-49.
Sun, Y., Wei, K.K., Fan, C., Lu, Y. and Gupta, S. (2016), “Does social climate matter? On friendship Effect of
groups in social commerce”, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, Vol. 18, pp. 37-47.
information
Sun, Y., Shao, X., Li, X., Guo, Y. and Nie, K. (2019), “How live streaming influences purchase intentions
in social commerce: an IT affordance perspective”, Electronic Commerce Research and
privacy
Applications, Vol. 37, pp. 1-12. concern
Szekely, G.J. and Rizzo, M.L. (2005), “A new test for multivariate normality”, Journal of Multivariate
Analysis, Vol. 93 No. 1, pp. 58-80.
Tajvidi, M., Wang, Y., Hajli, N. and Love, P.E.D. (2020), “Brand value Co-creation in social commerce:
the role of interactivity, social support, and relationship quality”, Computers in Human
Behavior, In press.
Wang, Y. and Herrando, C. (2019), “Does privacy assurance on social commerce sites matter to
millennials?”, International Journal of Information Management, Vol. 44, pp. 164-177.
Weinberger, M., Zhitomirsky-Geffet, M. and Bouhnik, D. (2017), “Factors affecting users’ online
privacy literacy among students in Israel”, Online Information Review, Vol. 41 No. 5,
pp. 655-671.
Wilson, B. and Henseler, J. (2007). “Modeling reflective higher-order constructs using three approaches
with PLS path modelling: a Monte Carlo comparison”, Australian and New Zealand Marketing
Academy Conference, pp. 791-800.
Wirtz, J., Lwin, M.O. and Williams, J.D. (2007), “Causes and consequences of consumer online privacy
concern”, International Journal of Service Industry Management, Vol. 18 No. 4, pp. 326-348.
Wottrich, V.M., van Reijmersdal, E.A. and Smit, E.G. (2018), “The privacy trade-off for mobile app
downloads: the roles of app value, intrusiveness, and privacy concerns”, Decision Support
Systems, Vol. 106, pp. 44-52.
Xu, H., Dinev, T., Smith, J. and Hart, P. (2011), “Information privacy concerns: linking individual
perceptions with institutional privacy assurances”, Journal of the Association for Information
Systems, Vol. 12 No. 12, pp. 798-824.
Xu, J., Cenfetelli, R.T. and Aquino, K. (2016), “Do different kinds of trust matter? An examination of
the three trusting beliefs on satisfaction and purchase behavior in the buyer–seller context”,
The Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Vol. 25 No. 1, pp. 15-31.
Yahia, I.B., Al-Neama, N. and Kerbache, L. (2018), “Investigating the drivers for social commerce in
social media platforms: importance of trust, social support and the platform perceived usage”,
Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Vol. 41, pp. 11-19.
Yeh, C.H., Wang, Y.S., Lin, S.J., Tseng, T.H., Lin, H.H., Shih, Y.W. and Lai, Y.H. (2018), “What drives
internet users’ willingness to provide personal information?”, Online Information Review,
Vol. 42 No. 6, pp. 923-939.
Zhang, X., Liu, S., Deng, Z. and Chen, X. (2017), “Knowledge sharing motivations in online health
communities: a comparative study of health professionals and normal users”, Computers in
Human Behavior, Vol. 75, pp. 797-810.
Zhang, X., Liu, S., Chen, X., Wang, L., Gao, B. and Zhu, Q. (2018), “Health information privacy
concerns, antecedents, and information disclosure intention in online health communities”,
Information & Management, Vol. 55 No. 4, pp. 482-493.
Zhao, Y., Zhao, Y., Yuan, X. and Zhou, R. (2018), “How knowledge contributor characteristics and
reputation affect user payment decision in paid Q&A? An empirical analysis from the
perspective of trust theory”, Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, Vol. 31, pp. 1-11.
Zhu, Y. and Bao, Z.S. (2018), “The role of negative network externalities in SNS fatigue: an empirical
study based on impression management concern, privacy concern, and social overload”, Data
Technologies and Applications, Vol. 52 No. 3, pp. 313-328.
OIR Appendix
Measurement scale and items
(note: the platform in the below items refers to a user’s favorite social commerce platform)
Disposition to privacy (DTP) (adapted from Xu et al. (2011))
DTP1. Compared to others, I am more sensitive about the way the platform handles my personal
information.
DTP2. To me, it is the most important thing to keep my information privacy.
DTP3. Compared to others, I tend to be more concerned about potential threats to my information
privacy.
Reputation (REP) (adapted from Li (2014))
REP1. This platform has a good reputation compared to other rival platforms.
REP2. This platform has a reputation for offering good products or services.
REP3. This platform has a reputation for being respectful to its customers.
Laws (LAW) (adapted from Wirtz et al. (2007))
LAW1. The existing laws in the country should be improved to protect online privacy.
LAW2. There should be more stringent international laws to protect privacy on the Internet.
LAW3. There should be tougher regulations by the government to protect personal privacy online.
Collection (COL) (adapted from Stewart and Segars (2002))
COL1. It usually bothers me when the platform asks me for personal information.
COL2. When the platform asks me for personal information, I sometimes think twice before
providing it.
COL3. It bothers me to give personal information to so many platforms.
COL4. I am concerned that the platform is collecting too much personal information about me.
Errors (ERR) (adapted from Stewart and Segars (2002))
ERR1. All the personal information in databases should be double-checked for accuracy.
ERR2. The platform should take more steps to make sure that the personal information in their files
is accurate.
ERR3. The platform should have better procedures to correct errors in personal information.
ERR4. The platform should devote more time and effort to verifying the accuracy of the personal
information in their databases.
Improper access (IA) (adapted from Stewart and Segars (2002))
IA1. The platform should devote more time and effort to preventing unauthorized access to personal
information.
IA2. The platform should take more steps to make sure that unauthorized people cannot access
personal information in their computers.
IA3. The databases that contain personal information should be protected from unauthorized access.
Secondary use (SU) (adapted from Stewart and Segars (2002))
SU1. When people give personal information to a platform for some reason, the platform should
never use the information for any other purpose.
SU2. The platform should never sell the personal information in their databases to other companies.
SU3. The platform should not use personal information for any purposes unless it has been
authorized by the individuals who provided the information.
SU4. The platform should never share personal information with other companies unless it has been
authorized by the individuals who provided the information.
Trust (TRU) (adapted from Dinev and Hart (2006))
TRU1. The platform provides safe environments in which to exchange information with others.
TRU2. The platform provides reliable environments in which to conduct business transactions.
TRU3. The platform handles personal information submitted by users in a competent fashion.
Privacy risk (PRR) (adapted from Xu et al. (2011))
PRR1. In general, it would be risky to give personal information to this platform.
 PRR2. There would be high potential for privacy loss associated with giving personal information to Effect of
this platform.
PRR3. Providing this platform with my personal information would involve many unexpected information
problems. privacy
Social shopping intention (SSI) (adapted from Chen and Shen (2015))
concern
SSI1. I will consider the shopping experience of other users when I want to shop on the platform.
SSI2. I will ask other users to provide me with their suggestions before I go shopping on the
platform.
SSI3. I am willing to buy the products recommended by other users on the platform.

About the author

Tao Zhou is a professor at School of Management, Hangzhou Dianzi University. His work has been
published in Decision Support Systems, Information Systems Management, Internet Research, Electronic
Commerce Research, Computers in Human Behavior and several other journals. His research interests
include social networking and user behavior. Tao Zhou can be contacted at: zhoutao@hdu.edu.cn

For instructions on how to order reprints of this article, please visit our website:
www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/licensing/reprints.htm
Or contact us for further details: permissions@emeraldinsight.com