A Theory of Multilevel Information Privacy Management for the Digital Era
Authors: Bélanger, France; James, Tabitha L.
Journal: Information Systems Research (2020)
<jats:p>In the digital era, it is increasingly important to understand how privacy decisions are made because information is frequently perceived as a commodity that is mismanaged. The preponderance of privacy literature focuses on individual-level information privacy concern and personal self-disclosure decisions. We propose that a more versatile multilevel description is required to enable exploration of complex privacy decisions that involve co-owned (i.e., group) information in increasingly sophisticated digital environments. We define the concepts of group and individual information privacy, “we-privacy” and “I-privacy” respectively, as the ability of an individual or group to construct, regulate, and apply the rules for managing their information and interaction with others. We develop the theory of multilevel information privacy (TMIP), which uses the theory of communication privacy management and the developmental theory of privacy as foundations for a social rule-based (i.e., normative) process of making privacy decisions that evolve over time with experience. The TMIP contributes to the privacy literature by drawing from prominent social psychology theories of group beha…