The unauthorized use of personal information belonging to users of apps integrated with the Facebook platform affects millions of users. Crucially, although privacy concerns and awareness have increased, the use of these apps, and related privacy behaviors, remain largely unchanged. Given that such privacy behaviors are likely influenced by individuals' personality traits, it is imperative to better understand which personality traits make individuals more vulnerable to such unauthorized uses. We build on a recontextualized version of the
theory of planned behavior
(TPB) to evaluate the influence of the Big Five personality traits on attitudes toward Facebook privacy settings, social norms, and information privacy concerns (IPCs)—all within the context of Facebook app use. To evaluate this study's model, we analyzed 576 survey responses by way of partial least squares path modeling. Results indicate that highly extraverted individuals are particularly vulnerable to privacy violations (e.g., unauthorized use of personal information) because of their negative attitudes toward Facebook privacy settings. Our post hoc analysis uncovered interesting combinations of personality traits that make individuals particularly vulnerable to the unauthorized use of app-based information. In particular, the combination of extraversion and conscientiousness had a negative effect on individuals' attitude toward privacy settings. We also found a significant negative relationship between
IPCs
and
intention to use Facebook apps
. Finally, we found a positive relationship between social norms and intentions. Taken together, these results infer that individuals are likely to be influenced by their peers in the use of Facebook apps but that their intentions to use these apps declines as privacy concerns increase.
This paper sets out to study the views of key stakeholders on the issue of cloud information security within institutions of Higher Education. A specific focus is on understanding trust and the adoption of cloud computing in context of the unique operational requirements of South African universities. Contributions are made on both a methodological and theoretical level. Methodologically the study contributes by employing an Interpretivist approach and using Thematic Analysis in a topic area often studied quantitatively, thus affording researchers the opportunity to gain the necessary in-depth insight into how key stakeholders view cloud security and trust. A theoretical contribution is made in the form of a trust-centric conceptual framework that illustrates how the qualitative data relates to concepts innate to cloud computing trust and adoption. Both these contributions lend credence to the fact that there is a need to address cloud information security with a specific focus on the contextual elements that surround South African universities. The paper concludes with some considerations for implementing and investigating cloud computing services in Higher Education contexts in South Africa.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.