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Research on online user privacy shows that empirical evidence on how privacy literacy relates to users' information privacy empowerment is missing. To fill this gap, this paper investigated the respective influence of two primary dimensions of online privacy literacy – namely declarative and procedural knowledge – on online users' information privacy empowerment.

An empirical analysis is conducted using a dataset collected in Europe. This survey was conducted in 2019 among 27,524 representative respondents of the European population.

The main results show that users' procedural knowledge is positively linked to users' privacy empowerment. The relationship between users' declarative knowledge and users' privacy empowerment is partially supported. While greater awareness about firms and organizations practices in terms of data collections and further uses conditions was found to be significantly associated with increased users' privacy empowerment, unpredictably, results revealed that the awareness about the GDPR and user’s privacy empowerment are negatively associated. The empirical findings reveal also that greater online privacy literacy is associated with heightened users' information privacy empowerment.

While few advanced studies made systematic efforts to measure changes occurred on websites since the GDPR enforcement, it remains unclear, however, how individuals perceive, understand and apply the GDPR rights/guarantees and their likelihood to strengthen users' information privacy control. Therefore, this paper contributes empirically to understanding how online users' privacy literacy shaped by both users' declarative and procedural knowledge is likely to affect users' information privacy empowerment. The study empirically investigates the effectiveness of the GDPR in raising users' information privacy empowerment from user-based perspective. Results stress the importance of greater transparency of data tracking and processing decisions made by online businesses and services to strengthen users' control over information privacy. Study findings also put emphasis on the crucial need for more educational efforts to raise users' awareness about the GDPR rights/guarantees related to data protection. Empirical findings also show that users who are more likely to adopt self-protective approaches to reinforce personal data privacy are more likely to perceive greater control over personal data. A broad implication of this finding for practitioners and E-businesses stresses the need for empowering users with adequate privacy protection tools to ensure more confidential transactions.

The advancement of enterprise social networks (ESNs) facilitates information sharing but also presents the challenge of managing information boundaries. This study aims to explore the factors that influence the information-control behavior of ESN users when continuously sharing information.

This study specifies the information-control behaviors in the “wall posts” channel and applies communication privacy management (CPM) theory to analyze the effects of the individual-specific factor (disposition to value information), context-specific factors (work-relatedness and information richness) and risk-benefit ratio (public benefit and public risk). Data on actual information-control behaviors extracted from ESN logs are examined using multilevel mixed-effects logistic regression analysis.

The study's findings show the direct effects of the individual-specific factor, context-specific factors and risk-benefit ratio, highlighting interactions between the individual motivation factor and ESN context factors.

This study reshapes the relationship of CPM theory boundary rules in the ESN context, extending information-control research and providing insights into ESNs' information-control practices.

Skippable video advertising offers users the option to skip directly to their desired video content after viewing a limited amount of advertising and is becoming a format increasingly preferred by advertisers. This study constructed a mediator model based on advertising attitude to examine the influence of users' perceived control and perceived intrusiveness on brand attitude and advertising avoidance intention in skippable video ads.

The study considered the structural equation model using a self-reporting measure method. The research model was tested using a sample of 302 respondents.

The results showed that perceived control positively affected ad and brand attitude and negatively affected advertising avoidance intention. Perceived intrusiveness negatively affected attitudes toward the advertising and the brand but positively affected advertising avoidance intention. Ad attitude and brand attitude had no significant influence on advertising avoidance intention. The results also confirmed that ad attitude mediates the path from perceived control and intrusiveness to brand attitude.

This study further enriches the theoretical development of skippable video ads and expands the perspective and scope of interactive advertising research.

This paper aims to investigate how online consumer reviews (OCRs), countdowns and self-control affect consumers' online impulse buying behavior in online group buying (OGB) and uncover the relationship between these factors.

Based on the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) framework, this research examines the effects of OCRs, countdowns and self-control on users' impulse purchases. First, the influence of emotions on impulse purchases in group purchasing is investigated. In addition, this study innovatively applies stress-coping theory to group buying research, with countdowns exerting temporal pressure on consumers and OCRs viewed as social pressure, to investigate in depth how countdowns and OCRs affect users' impulse purchase behavior. Finally, this study also surveys the moderating role of users' self-control in the impulse purchase process.

The results show that the perceived value of OCRs and positive emotions (PE) were positively correlated with impulsiveness (IMP) and the urge to buy impulsively (UBI), while negative emotions (NE) were negatively correlated with IMP. Countdowns (CD) had a positive effect on UBI. Self-control can indirectly affect users' impulse buying by negatively moderating the relationship between PE and UBI, PE and IMP and CD and UBI.

The research results can help group buying platforms and related participants understand the factors influencing users' impulse purchases in OGB and facilitate them to better design strategies to increase product sales.

In the online environment, consumers increasingly feel vulnerable due to firms’ expanding capabilities of collecting and using their data in an unsanctioned manner. Drawing from gossip theory, this research focuses on two key suppressors of consumer vulnerability: transparency and control. Previous studies conceptualize transparency and control from rationalistic approaches that overlook individual experiences and present a unidimensional conceptualization. This research aims to understand how individuals interpret transparency and control concerning privacy vulnerability in the online environment. Additionally, it explores strategic approaches to communicating the value of transparency and control.

An interpretivism paradigm and phenomenology were adopted in the research design. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 41 participants, including consumers and experts, and analyzed through thematic analysis.

The findings identify key conceptual dimensions of transparency and control by adapting justice theory. They also reveal that firms can communicate assurance, functional, technical and social values of transparency and control to address consumer vulnerability.

This research makes the following contributions to the data privacy literature. The findings exhibit multidimensional and comprehensive conceptualizations of transparency and control, including user, firm and information perspectives. Additionally, the conceptual framework combines empirical insights from both experiencers and observers to offer an understanding of how transparency and control serve as justice mechanisms to effectively tackle the issue of unsanctioned transmission of personal information and subsequently address vulnerability. Lastly, the findings provide strategic approaches to communicating the value of transparency and control.

Spatial olfactory design in the library appears to be a practical approach to enhance the coordination between architectural spaces and user behaviors, shape immersive activity experiences and shape immersive activity experiences. Therefore, this study aims to explore the association between the olfactory elements of library space and users’ olfactory perception, providing a foundation for the practical design of olfactory space in libraries.

Using the olfactory perception semantic differential experiment method, this study collected feedback on the emotional experience of olfactory stimuli from 56 participants in an academic library. From the perspective of environmental psychology, the dimensions of pleasure, control and arousal of users’ olfactory perception in the academic library environment were semantically and emotionally described. In addition, the impact of fatigue state on users’ olfactory perception was analyzed through statistical methods to explore the impact path of individual physical differences on olfactory perception.

It was found that users’ olfactory perception in the academic library environment is likely semantically described from the dimensions of pleasure, arousal and control. These dimensions mutually influence users’ satisfaction with olfactory elements. Moreover, there is a close correlation between pleasure and satisfaction. In addition, fatigue states may impact users’ olfactory perception. Furthermore, users in a high-fatigue state may be more sensitive to the arousal of olfactory perception.

This article is an empirical exploration of users’ perception of the environmental odors in libraries. The experimental results of this paper may have practical implications for the construction of olfactory space in academic libraries.

Artificial intelligence (AI) applications pose a potential threat to users' data security and privacy due to their high data-dependence nature. This paper aims to investigate an understudied issue in the literature, namely, how users perceive the threat of and decide to use a threatening AI application. In particular, it examines the influencing factors and the mechanisms that affect an individual’s behavioral intention to use facial recognition, a threatening AI.

The authors develop a research model with trust as the key mediating variable by integrating technology threat avoidance theory, the theory of planned behavior and contextual factors related to facial recognition. Then, it is tested through a sequential mixed-methods investigation, including a qualitative study (for model development) of online comments from various platforms and a quantitative study (for model validation) using field survey data.

Perceived threat (triggered by perceived susceptibility and severity) and perceived avoidability (promoted by perceived effectiveness, perceived cost and self-efficacy) have negative and positive relationships, respectively, with an individual’s attitude toward facial recognition applications; these relationships are partially mediated by trust. In addition, perceived avoidability is positively related to perceived behavioral control, which along with attitude and subjective norm is positively related to individuals' intentions to use facial recognition applications.

This paper is among the first to examine the factors that affect the acceptance of threatening AI applications and how. The research findings extend the current literature by providing rich and novel insights into the important roles of perceived threat, perceived avoidability, and trust in affecting an individual’s attitude and intention regarding using threatening AI applications.

This study aims to argue that user’s continued use behavior is contingent upon two perceptions (i.e. the app and the provider). This study examines the moderating effects of user’s perceptions of apps and providers on the effects of security and privacy concerns and investigate whether assurance mechanisms decrease such concerns.

This study conducts a scenario-based survey with 694 mobile cloud computing (MCC) app users to understand their perceptions and behaviors.

This study finds that while perceived value of data transfer to the cloud moderates the effects of security and privacy concerns on continued use behavior, trust only moderates the effect of privacy concerns. This study also finds that perceived effectiveness of security and privacy intervention impacts privacy concerns but does not decrease security concerns.

Prior mobile app studies mainly focused on mobile apps and did not investigate the perceptions of app providers along with app features in the same study. Furthermore, International Organization for Standardization 27018 certification and privacy policy notification are the interventions that exhibit data assurance mechanisms. However, it is unknown whether these interventions are able to decrease users’ security and privacy concerns after using MCC apps.

The COVID-19 global pandemic reframed the argument for the importance of learning management systems (LMS) in unprecedented ways. Meanwhile, LMS users were forced to use these technologies despite the heightened anxiety compounded by the pandemic, very little technical preparation and the postpandemic learning environment that cannot depend on these pandemic-imposed regulations and adoptions. This study aims to examine the impacts of behavioral control and anxiety emotions on adoption decisions.

This quantitative research uses structural equation modeling to test the hypothesized relationships.

Results showed that perceived behavioral control is very important in boosting ease of use perceptions while computer anxiety exhibited a negative impact on perceived ease of use.

This research used cross-sectional data from a medium-sized university. Results must, therefore, be interpreted with this understanding in mind. Nonetheless, this research demonstrates the critical roles of control and emotions in technology adoption decisions among students in an online learning environment.

This research highlights the importance of behavioral control and anxiety emotions in technology adoption decisions. It reveals that to drive adoption, students’ control perceptions must be increased while simultaneously keeping anxiety emotions at bay. This understanding is key to communicating buy-in of LMS to students.

The current body of empirical research regarding the impact of trust in the cybersecurity commitment of institutions on digital payment usage has focused solely on a macro-level analysis, overlooking the intricate dynamics between institutions' cybersecurity commitments and the trust levels of digital payment users. In light of this limitation, this study aims to offer a more comprehensive understanding of this complex relationship.

A case study was conducted on digital payment users in India through the critical realist lens. To gather data, interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with digital payment users from various regions of the country.

The citizen-centric outcomes of the national cybersecurity commitment (performance and responsiveness) are the most prominent and impactful trust indicators. These outcomes play a crucial role in shaping digital payment users' perception and trust in the cybersecurity commitment of public institutions. Individuals' value positions also influence trust judgments, as it is essential to recognize the value tensions that may arise due to security implementation and their congruence with citizens' values.

The findings of this study have significant implications for policymakers. They are potentially an artifact of the security and perception of digital payment users and the cultural uniqueness of digital payment users in India.

The study proposes a holistic understanding of the relationship between institutions' cybersecurity commitments and the trust levels of digital payment users. It offers a qualitative evaluation of how digital payment users perceive and construe efficient information security management implemented by public institutions.