Method


The decision to pursue a qualitative approach to elucidate the nuances surrounding customer privacy concerns and their comfort with technology was motivated both by the acknowledged absence of consumer-based research in this area and our desire to provide a stronger foundation to guide thinking and subsequent empirical investigation. When previous empirical research within a specific domain is scant, qualitative methods are typically advocated as advantageous for generating a foundation for subsequent generation of hypotheses (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss, 1990). Qualitative methods have been used to great advantage in marketing and consumer behavior studies for such purposes (e.g., Arnould and Price, 1993; Kohli and Jaworski, 1990; Mick and Fournier, 1998; Parasuraman, Zeithaml, and Berry, 1985). Following this well established tradition, we conducted a series of focus groups to gain an in-depth understanding of what aspects of privacy concern consumers, and how their familiarity and comfort with the technology eases or hinders their ability to deal with these concerns.

Respondent Selection and Interview Format

A series of six focus groups were used to investigate the research questions. The purpose of the focus groups was to understand consumers' perspectives on privacy issues. The profiles of participants in the six focus groups are given in Table 10-1.

Table 10-1: Participant profiles

Group

Age (in years )

Number of persons

Male students

18 to 22

6

Female students

17 to 21

5

Young Males

30 to 45

8

Young Females

30 to 45

8

Older Males

46 to 65

7

Older Females

46 to 55

8

The gender grouping of the respondents was guided by research suggesting that men and women have different comfort levels with respect to technology (Venkatesh and Morris, 2000). In terms of age groups, we expected that people in the 18-25 segment would be much more familiar with computers and the Internet since they use it for school work, and hence their technological competence levels would differ from the other respondents. Participants in the non-student focus groups were purposively selected to provide a representation for relatively younger adults (ages 30 to 45) as well as older adults and senior citizens . This was done in order to provide some amount of chronological variance, as previous research has found that people from different age groups differ significantly in their attitudes toward technology usage (Morris and Venkatesh, 2000). Additionally, we felt it was important to include a few older participants in the study, in view of the fact that seniors are reported to be the fastest growing segment online (Allen, 2001).

The respondents were primarily Caucasian, and were drawn from the middle or upper classes of local society. They were recruited by a local market research firm. In addition to meeting gender and age criteria, all respondents were required to have made an online purchase in the last six months. The respondents were paid $50 for their participation. Each focus group lasted approximately two hours. A set of questions was used to guide the discussion (Appendix 1). All discussions were audiotaped with the written consent of the respondents. The focus groups were moderated by one of the authors. The transcriptions of the discussions were read independently by the authors with a view to identifying common themes. Following this, each of the authors wrote notes reflecting his or her holistic interpretation of each group discussion. From the exchange of notes, we identified the integral themes relating to privacy concerns, self-perceived technological competence levels, and coping strategies.




Contemporary Research in E-marketing (Vol. 1)
Agility and Discipline Made Easy: Practices from OpenUP and RUP
ISBN: B004V9MS42
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 164

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