Insider Privacy Breach and Trust Restoration: Is the CEO’s Gender as Important as the CEO’s Response?

In this study we use Politeness Theory to understand the trust violation and restoration process. The study examines the role of CEO gender, perceived CEO status, and response type (apology vs. denial) on restored trust and trusting beliefs in the case of an insider data breach incident. The data were collected using a scenario based experiment from students studying in a Midwestern University. Data were analyzed using SEM approach with five different models. The study controlled for perceived news seriousness, website reputation and perceived design quality, user’s privacy concern, trust propensity and user-gender. The results show that in the case of an insider data breach incident a CEO apology is more effective than a denial. Perceived CEO status helps in restoring trust especially in the case of denial. The study also reveals the hidden gendered biases. Male CEOs are more effective in restoring trust with denial than female CEOs are. Social, managerial and theoretical implications are discussed

Tenancy and accumulation: A study of the capitalist farm sector in Punjab

The period from the late 1990s to the present in rural India has been characterised by scholars as being a period of agrarian distress. There is debate, however, on whether this “unending” crisis has halted capital accumulation in agriculture and affected all classes. This paper contributes to this debate by studying aspects of capital accumulation in Punjab. It uses data from two surveys of a village in the Doaba region of Punjab: a census survey by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies in 2011, and a resurvey by the author of a sample of households in 2019. The paper argues that capital accumulation in the village has continued over the last two decades and was concentrated in a class of tenant-capitalist farmers belonging to the dominant class and caste (Jat Sikhs). In the context of stagnation of agricultural productivity and declining profitability per unit of land, this group of capitalist farmers was able to enhance their total income by leasing in land. This opportunity was created by large-scale emigration among the landed Jat Sikhs. Tenant-capitalist farmers had privileged access to the lands of the emigrants with whom they shared caste and kinship ties. This path of accumulation was further facilitated by access to cheap migrant workers, assured procurement by the State, an active market for machinery, and access to credit at affordable rates of interest. Tenancy thus provided an impetus to accumulation and investment in the capitalist agriculture of Punjab in the contemporary period

Got Phished! Role of Top Management Support in Creating Phishing Safe Organizations

In this research, we examine the role of top management involvement in creating phishing awareness in an organization. This study deploys field study experiment with phishing deception. The study was carried out in two phases – phase 1 involved training the employee-participants of a Midwestern US University randomly using two different phishing awareness training videos – one showcasing chancellor of a Midwestern University, and another one showcasing a newly hired IT officer. Phase 2 involved three phishing attacks with varying regarding the degree of sophistication (or social engineering). The results show that there is a significant positive impact of perceived top management involvement in creating phishing awareness and preventing employees from getting phished. The paper concludes by discussing theoretical and managerial implications

Trust Drops when Insiders Drop the Ball: The Role of Age, Gender, and Privacy Concern in Insider Data Breaches

Recently data breaches, and insider data breaches in particular, have become more common. However, there is limited research examining the factors associated with the “drop” in the users’ trust in response to such an event. This research uses the lens of social role theory and procedural justice to understand the role of age (younger-older) along with biological (male – female) and cultural (masculinity – femininity) gender, and the four privacy concern dimensions - collection, secondary use, unauthorized access and error, on initial trust and corresponding trust drop associated with three trust dimensions - ability, benevolence, and integrity. The study uses a scenario based approach focusing on an insider breach vignette. The findings also provide a helpful insight into the comparative roles of usual trust builders (e.g., reputation, design), and trust crashers (e.g., privacy concern) in the process of trust drop on different demographics (e.g., older and younger, males and females)

Unauthorized Information Sharing Vs. Hacking: The Moderating Role of Privacy Concern on Trust Found and Lost

This study examines the moderating role of privacy concern (PC) on initial trust and the related trust loss associated with news pertaining to hacking of user information and unauthorized sharing of user information by a website. This study is among the first to study the moderating role of the level of privacy concern on the degree of attribution. The relationships are examined individually for ability, benevolence and integrity based trust. The findings suggest that the users were more punitive of the fact that the company willingly, unethically, and in an unauthorized fashion shared its users’ information for its gain. The study unravels an interesting dual nature of privacy concern and trust. The findings suggest that initial trust leads to bigger integrity based trust drop for high PC people, however, trust propensity cushions the trust drop for low PC users across all three trust types i.e. ability, benevolence and integrity. This paper provides several theoretical and managerial implications

Insider Data Breach and CEO Apology (or Denial): Does CEO Gender Impact Trust Restoration?

This study examined the effect of CEO gender and intervention type on post-violation trust restoration in the event of an insider data breach. The results show that the insider breach event causes users’ trust to decline significantly. We also found that regardless of gender, CEO apology was more effective than denial in restoring post-violation trust. While there was no significant difference between the genders in the case of an apology, we found that in the case of denial male CEOs experienced significantly higher post-violation trust than female CEOs. The findings were explained using interactional justice. The study is among the first to examine the perceived differences between male and female CEOs and the social account of apology and denial. The study also examines the comparative effect of male and female CEO responses on male and female respondents respectively. Social, managerial and theoretical implications, along with future research directions, are discussed

Continuing E-book Use: Role of Environmental Consciousness, Personality and Past Usage

Although recent studies shed light on design features preferred by users of e-books, little effort has been made to examine the impact of e-book design and characteristics of the individual user on usage or continued usage of e-books in one conceptual framework. This study examines (1) the role of environmental consciousness and personality (Big-5) on e-book usage, and also, (2) the influence of preference for traditional books and the perceived e-book design on e-book usage intentions. One of the significant findings is that environmental consciousness lowers preference for traditional books, thereby increasing acceptance of e-books, and increasing perceived design evaluation of the e-book. Personality factors impact the preference for traditional books and perceived design evaluation of the e-book in different ways. This study is one of the first to establish the role of environmental consciousness on continuing usage intentions related to e-books

Social Support (or lack thereof) and Internal Drive: Factors that Connect Online Learners, Females, and First Generation College Students

As more female and first generation college students (FGN) embrace higher-education – business in particular, and also as online learning gains more traction there is a need to explore the factors that drive the academic success of these learners. Online learners, female students and FGN all share a common bond, i.e. reduced social support. This study examines whether reduced social support – caused by technical (Internet/Online), cultural (females) and social (FGN) factors could have a parallel dampening, or other, influence on the impact of learning processes on learning outcomes for these students. The study relies on the 3P model of student learning to integrate diverse theories which substantiate reduced social support for these demographics, such as Media Richness for online learners, Stereotypes for females, and Social and Cultural Capital theories for FGN students. Data were collected from students enrolled in various business courses in a Midwestern University and analyzed using the Structural Equation Modeling approach

Shipping and Return-Shipping Costs do not Cost the Same: The Role of Gender and Product Price in Online Buying

Shipping is one of the costliest elements of online retail; it is also a sore topic for consumers. There is still relatively little or no research that examines the relative role of shipping and return-shipping costs on consumers’ purchasing intentions. In this research, we examine two questions: what is the relative role of shipping and return-shipping costs on consumers’ purchase intentions. Secondly, how does gender moderate the relationships between the above costs and subsequent purchasing intentions? Data was collected using Amazon Mechanical Turk from respondents all over the US. The findings show that shipping costs impact purchasing decisions for both expensive and inexpensive products. However, return-shipping affects the purchasing intentions for costly products only, more so for males than for females. In all, the study makes a unique contribution by examining the shipping and return-shipping cost questions in online buying that are relatively understudied so far