전자상거래에서 정보 프라이버시 염려를 유발하는 원인과 보호반응에 관한 연구: 주인-대리인 이론을 중심으로

Under the premise that information privacy concerns can atrophy e-commerce by causing particular behaviors of Internet users, this study focused on exploring the causes of information privacy concerns, the related information privacy protective responses of Internet users, and measures for alleviating the information privacy concerns. This study is based on the 'principal-agent theory,' and established the following as factors that cause information privacy concerns of Internet users: perceived information non-transparency; perceived action uncertainty. Also, the information privacy concerns caused by the factors were established as the cause of information privacy protective responses of Internet users. Also, the concept of 'signaling' and 'incentive,' which were presented to solve the adverse selection and moral hazard issue in the host-agent theory, was introduced to establish the following as factors that alleviate information privacy concerns: trust; informativeness. Those factors were included in the research model to conduct an empirical analysis. The analysis has revealed that both the perceived information non-transparency (p<0.01) and perceived action uncertainty (p<0.01) as to websites had a significant impact on information privacy concerns. Also, information privacy concerns of Internet users (p<0.01) had a significant impact on their information privacy protective responses who strive to protect their personal information. In addition, when trust and informativeness, which were established as factors that can alleviate information privacy concerns, were empirically analyzed, trust and informativeness had the effect of alleviating information privacy concerns. Based on the findings, the following was confirmed: Boosting the trust of Internet users in websites and offering useful information related to personal data can play a key role in alleviating the information privacy concerns of Internet users.