Assessing the impact of affective feedback on end-user security awareness

A lack of awareness regarding online security behaviour can leave users and their devices vulnerable to compromise. This paper highlights potential areas where users may fall victim to online attacks, and reviews existing tools developed to raise users’ awareness of security behaviour. An ongoing research project is described, which provides a combined monitoring solution and affective feedback system, designed to provide affective feedback on automatic detection of risky security behaviour within a web browser. Results gained from the research conclude an affective feedback mechanism in a browser-based environment, can promote general awareness of online security

Are 21st-century citizens grieving for their loss of privacy?

Although much research exists that examines cognitive events leading up to information disclosure, such as risk-benefit analysis and state-based and trait-based attributes, minimal research exists that examines user responses after a direct or indirect breach of privacy. The present study examines 1,004 consumer responses to two different high-profile privacy breaches using sentiment analysis. Our findings indicate that individuals who experience an actual or surrogate privacy breach exhibit similar emotional responses, and that the pattern of responses resembles well-known reactions to other losses. Specifically, we present evidence that users contemplating evidence of a privacy invasion experience and communicate very similar responses as individuals who have lost loved ones, gone through a divorce or who face impending death because of a terminal illness. These responses parallel behavior associated with the Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief

Alter ego, state of the art on user profiling: an overview of the most relevant organisational and behavioural aspects regarding User Profiling.

This report gives an overview of the most relevant organisational and\ud behavioural aspects regarding user profiling. It discusses not only the\ud most important aims of user profiling from both an organisation’s as\ud well as a user’s perspective, it will also discuss organisational motives\ud and barriers for user profiling and the most important conditions for\ud the success of user profiling. Finally recommendations are made and\ud suggestions for further research are given

Adolescents’ perceptions of digital media’s potential to elicit jealousy, conflict and monitoring behaviors within romantic relationships

Understanding the role of digital media in adolescents’ romantic relationships is essential to the prevention of digital dating violence. This study focuses on adolescents’ perceptions of the impact of digital media on jealousy, conflict, and control within their romantic relationships. Twelve focus group interviews were conducted, among 55 secondary school students (ngirls = 28; 51% girls) between the ages of 15 and 18 years (Mage = 16.60 years; SD age = 1.21), in the Dutch-speaking community of Belgium. The respondents identified several sources of jealousy within their romantic relationships, such as online pictures of the romantic partner with others and online messaging with others. Adolescents identified several ways in which romantic partners would react when experiencing feelings of jealousy, such as contacting the person they saw as a threat or looking up the other person’s social media profiles. Along with feelings of jealousy, respondents described several monitoring behaviors, such as reading each other’s e-mails or accessing each other’s social media accounts. Adolescents also articulated several ways that they curated their social media to avoid conflict and jealousy within their romantic relationships. For instance, they adapted their social media behavior by avoiding the posting of certain pictures, or by ceasing to comment on certain content of others. The discussion section includes suggestions for future research and implications for practice, such as the need to incorporate information about e-safety into sexual and relational education and the need to have discussions with adolescents, about healthy boundaries for communication within their friendships and romantic relationships.</jats:p

Citizens' Willingness to Adopt Digital Contact Tracing Applications: Findings from a mixed methods study in Norway

Context: Early 2020, the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic began to spread globally. Digital contact tracing (DCT) applications began development soon after to help mitigate the spread and contain this major crisis. In Norway, the application Smittestopp was developed to fulfill the role as a digital solution. With a poor launch and little enforcement, less than half of the population downloaded the application. This experience should be explored further by the Norwegian government, in order to ensure successful digital solutions in the future. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore Norwegians citizens’ willingness to adopt Smittestopp, and if privacy concerns and human emotions affected these intentions. The way we measured this was by looking at how; 1) privacy concerns, risk beliefs, trusting beliefs and relative advantage impacts intention to use Smittestopp and 2) if human emotions moderate the effects of these relations, thus, impacting intention to use Smittestopp. Methods: Our mixed methods research consisted of expanding an existing literature review and conducting a quantitative survey with a questionnaire. To complement the questionnaire data, follow-up interviews were also conducted. The literature review served as a theoretical foundation for our research, providing an overview of existing research on DCT-applications. A research model was adopted from a previous study examining Australian citizens' willingness to adopt the COVIDSafe-app. 9 hypotheses were developed to test suggested construct relations. The questionnaire was developed in SurveyXact by adopting questions from the aforementioned research paper, adjusting it for our research with the inclusion of human emotions. We received 189 valid responses to the distributed questionnaire, and made an interview guide aiming to complement and verify these responses further. We performed interviews with 11 volunteers from the questionnaire. The questionnaire data was analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS. The interview transcripts were analyzed using Quirkos; a Computer-assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS). Results: All 9 hypotheses were validated and supported through an analysis of the questionnaire data. These findings were later complemented by interview data, which verified most of the hypotheses but also brought interesting and contradictory results. Most notably, relative advantage significantly increased intention to use. Also, privacy concerns increased risk beliefs, trusting beliefs decreased risk beliefs, and intention to use increased actual use. Conclusion: We concluded that privacy concerns, trusting beliefs, risk beliefs and relative advantage affected citizens’ intentions to use DCT-applications. Emotions moderate both relative advantage and risk beliefs relations into intention to use. The findings explain why Smittestopp was barely used, and how future digital solutions can learn from this. Keywords: Digital contact tracing, COVID-19, information privacy concerns, trusting and risk beliefs, relative advantage, human emotions, Smittestopp, e-governance, mixed methods

Citizens' Willingness to Adopt Digital Contact Tracing Applications: Findings from a mixed methods study in Norway

Context: Early 2020, the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic began to spread globally. Digital contact tracing (DCT) applications began development soon after to help mitigate the spread and contain this major crisis. In Norway, the application Smittestopp was developed to fulfill the role as a digital solution. With a poor launch and little enforcement, less than half of the population downloaded the application. This experience should be explored further by the Norwegian government, in order to ensure successful digital solutions in the future. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore Norwegians citizens’ willingness to adopt Smittestopp, and if privacy concerns and human emotions affected these intentions. The way we measured this was by looking at how; 1) privacy concerns, risk beliefs, trusting beliefs and relative advantage impacts intention to use Smittestopp and 2) if human emotions moderate the effects of these relations, thus, impacting intention to use Smittestopp. Methods: Our mixed methods research consisted of expanding an existing literature review and conducting a quantitative survey with a questionnaire. To complement the questionnaire data, follow-up interviews were also conducted. The literature review served as a theoretical foundation for our research, providing an overview of existing research on DCT-applications. A research model was adopted from a previous study examining Australian citizens' willingness to adopt the COVIDSafe-app. 9 hypotheses were developed to test suggested construct relations. The questionnaire was developed in SurveyXact by adopting questions from the aforementioned research paper, adjusting it for our research with the inclusion of human emotions. We received 189 valid responses to the distributed questionnaire, and made an interview guide aiming to complement and verify these responses further. We performed interviews with 11 volunteers from the questionnaire. The questionnaire data was analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) in SmartPLS. The interview transcripts were analyzed using Quirkos; a Computer-assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software (CAQDAS). Results: All 9 hypotheses were validated and supported through an analysis of the questionnaire data. These findings were later complemented by interview data, which verified most of the hypotheses but also brought interesting and contradictory results. Most notably, relative advantage significantly increased intention to use. Also, privacy concerns increased risk beliefs, trusting beliefs decreased risk beliefs, and intention to use increased actual use. Conclusion: We concluded that privacy concerns, trusting beliefs, risk beliefs and relative advantage affected citizens’ intentions to use DCT-applications. Emotions moderate both relative advantage and risk beliefs relations into intention to use. The findings explain why Smittestopp was barely used, and how future digital solutions can learn from this. Keywords: Digital contact tracing, COVID-19, information privacy concerns, trusting and risk beliefs, relative advantage, human emotions, Smittestopp, e-governance, mixed methods

Critical review of the e-loyalty literature: a purchase-centred framework

Over the last few years, the concept of online loyalty has been examined extensively in the literature, and it remains a topic of constant inquiry for both academics and marketing managers. The tremendous development of the Internet for both marketing and e-commerce settings, in conjunction with the growing desire of consumers to purchase online, has promoted two main outcomes: (a) increasing numbers of Business-to-Customer companies running businesses online and (b) the development of a variety of different e-loyalty research models. However, current research lacks a systematic review of the literature that provides a general conceptual framework on e-loyalty, which would help managers to understand their customers better, to take advantage of industry-related factors, and to improve their service quality. The present study is an attempt to critically synthesize results from multiple empirical studies on e-loyalty. Our findings illustrate that 62 instruments for measuring e-loyalty are currently in use, influenced predominantly by Zeithaml et al. (J Marketing. 1996;60(2):31-46) and Oliver (1997; Satisfaction: a behavioral perspective on the consumer. New York: McGraw Hill). Additionally, we propose a new general conceptual framework, which leads to antecedents dividing e-loyalty on the basis of the action of purchase into pre-purchase, during-purchase and after-purchase factors. To conclude, a number of managerial implementations are suggested in order to help marketing managers increase their customers’ e-loyalty by making crucial changes in each purchase stage

Factors Influencing People’s Intention to Adopt E-Banking: An Empirical Study of Consumers in Shandong Province, China

E-Banking is growing at an unprecedented rate and has become a truly worldwide phenomenon, offering convenience, flexibility and interactivity for those that can, and know how to access it. This is clearly evidence in China. However, despite such growth and popularity, some users still have reservations about using Information and communication technology (ICT) in their daily banking activities, perhaps due to deep routed cultural factors that cause consumers to question the efficacy of such changes. Through the application of a technology acceptance framework, and empirical evidence from 52 E-Banking user questionnaires and four key market segment interviews, the research explores the factors that influence consumers’ intention to adopt E-Banking in Shandong Province of China. The findings highlight that perceived usefulness and perceived credibility are significant factors which have a positive influence on consumers’ intention to utilise E-Banking, while perceived ease of use and perceived cost are less significant. Unpacking the reasons for resistance to the use of E-Banking highlighted that “difficult to operate”, “unnecessary to use it” and “worry about the security” are key drivers and therefore challenges for the service providers. Based on the results, recommendations are drawn for banks, involving focusing on the significant factors, avoiding weaknesses and optimising strengths of E-Banking and ultimately developing more accurate market positioning strategies to align and manage consumer expectations and maximise potential acceptance