Co-owned information disclosure and collective privacy calculus on social network platforms: the moderating role of information ownership

Abstract

Purpose

Sharing co-owned information on social network platforms has become a common and inevitable phenomenon. However, due to the uniqueness of co-owned information, the privacy calculus theory based on a single information owner cannot explain co-owned information disclosure. Therefore, this study tries to investigate the underlying mechanism of users’ co-owned information disclosure from a collective privacy calculus perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

Through a survey of 740 participants, covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) was used to verify the proposed model and hypotheses.

Findings

The results show that personal benefit, others’ benefit and relationship benefit promote users’ co-owned information disclosure by positively affecting personal distributive fairness and others’ distributive fairness perception. Meanwhile, personal privacy risk and others’ privacy risk prevent users’ co-owned information disclosure by negatively affecting personal distributive fairness and others’ distributive fairness perception. Besides, others’ information ownership perception enhances the positive effect of others’ distributive fairness perception on co-owned information disclosure intention. Furthermore, others’ information ownership strengthens the mediating role of others’ distributive fairness.

Research limitations/implications

The findings of this study enrich the research scope of information disclosure and privacy calculus theory and help social network platform developers design collective privacy protection functions.

Originality/value

This study develops a collective privacy calculus model to understand users’ co-owned information disclosure on social network platforms, confirming the mediating role of collective distributive fairness and the moderating role of others’ information ownership perception in the process of collective privacy calculus.