The Dimensions Of Chinese Online Consumers’ Information Privacy Concerns

Our society has entered into the information era. Computers, mobile phones and other information technologies (i.e., IT) have become an indispensable part of people’s daily life. However, at the time when people are enjoying the advantages of IT, they are also suffering from information privacy concerns. The previous studies, find that when consumers worry about the information privacy, they will reduce their trust in electronic commerce providers and thus their purchase intention. Therefore, information privacy concerns are one of the main problems which hinder the development of electronic commerce. In this context, this paper uses a "privacy concerns" to measure Chinese consumers’perceptions of privacy information. The results of the study not only help to increase understanding of consumers perceptions of privacy in E-commerce, but also provide practical implications to E-commerce provider and regulatory institutions. It has a great theoretical and practical significance to increase the development of China’s E-commerce industry.This study is organized as follows:(1) to introduce the research background of consumer information privacy; and identify the research questions;(2) to review the literature of information privacy and information privacy concerns;(3) to use qualitative content analysis method to analyze reports of information privacy, and develop a measurement scale of Chinese online consumers’information privacy concerns;(4) to conduct empirical analysis, test the reliability and validity of the scale;(5) to use structural equation modeling (SEM) with LISERL to test the construct of the scale.After a series of empirical research, this study develops and validates a scale that identifies and measures the primary dimensions of Chinese online consumers’ information privacy concerns. The results indicate that the construct of Chinese online consumers’information privacy concerns has a second-order factor, which consists of three first-order dimensions-trade, management, and awareness.