Title: Balancing privacy concerns in the adoption of Location-Based Services: an empirical analysis

Authors: Sumeet Gupta, Heng Xu, Xialong Zhang

Addresses: Shri Shankaracharya Institute of Technology and Management, Department of Business Administration, Junwani, Bhilai, CG 490020, India. ' College of Information Sciences and Technology, The Pennsylvania State University, 307C IST Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA. ' College of Information Sciences and Technology, The Pennsylvania State University, 307C IST Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA

Abstract: Location-Based Services (LBSs) bring unprecedented mobility and personalisation value to nomadic customers and hence have great commercial potential. However, the commercial potential of LBS is obscured by consumer|s privacy concerns whereby the LBS provider can misuse confidential personal information and in extreme circumstances jeopardise an individual|s social life or finances. Drawing on the privacy calculus theoretical perspective, we study both pull-based and push-based LBS to provide a comprehensive view of LBS adoption. The results reveal that consumer|s privacy concerns influence their intention to adopt directly in case of push-based LBS and indirectly through performance expectancy in case of pull-based LBS.

Keywords: LBS adoption; location-based services; location commerce l-commerce; privacy calculus; technology adoption; pull-based LBS; push-based LBS; confidential information; personal information; privacy protection.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEB.2011.040358

International Journal of Electronic Business, 2011 Vol.9 No.1/2, pp.118 - 137

Published online: 24 May 2011 *

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