Title: Gender preferences of efficiencies and ethical issues: commercial, personal, and governmental applications of RFID-based implants and technologies

Authors: Alan D. Smith

Addresses: Department of Management and Marketing, Robert Morris University, Pittsburgh, PA 15219-3099, USA

Abstract: Significant advancements in RFID-related applications and its scanning technology has become an increasing subject for academic research. Analysing a sample of employed business professionals, representative of the service industry located within the metropolitan section of Pittsburgh, PA, a major corporate headquarters revealed a number of significant gender differences when considering the myriad operational and ethical issues associated RFID-related implementations, especially concerning microchip implants. Overall, male business professionals had a perceived greater awareness of RFID-related technological applications, while females were more concerned about job loss due to such technological innovations, local government has more control over technological innovations, and felt that such technology was useful in reducing the threat of personal identity theft. In general, most respondents felt that RFID-embedded microchip implants were potentially important in dealing with effectively dealing with criminal elements in society and keeping domesticated animals safe, but generally felt that too many potential issues associated with commercial and governmental misuse exists in order to allow for widespread, unregulated implementations into society.

Keywords: empirical study; microchip implants; operations; RFID technology; technological innovation; radio frequency identification; gender preferences; technological efficiencies; ethical issues; ethics; RFID-based implants; job losses; personal identity theft; commercial misuse; government misuse; unregulated implementation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBIS.2013.053217

International Journal of Business Information Systems, 2013 Vol.12 No.4, pp.455 - 492

Published online: 10 May 2013 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article