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Diminished or Just Different? A Factorial Vignette Study of Privacy as a Social Contract

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Abstract

A growing body of theory has focused on privacy as being contextually defined, where individuals have highly particularized judgments about the appropriateness of what, why, how, and to whom information flows within a specific context. Such a social contract understanding of privacy could produce more practical guidance for organizations and managers who have employees, users, and future customers all with possibly different conceptions of privacy across contexts. However, this theoretical suggestion, while intuitively appealing, has not been empirically examined. This study validates a social contract approach to privacy by examining whether and how privacy norms vary across communities and contractors. The findings from this theoretical examination support the use of contractual business ethics to understand privacy in research and in practice. As predicted, insiders to a community had significantly different understandings of privacy norms as compared to outsiders. In addition, all respondents held different privacy norms across hypothetical contexts, thereby suggesting privacy norms are contextually understood within a particular community of individuals. The findings support two conclusions. First, individuals hold different privacy norms without necessarily having diminished expectations of privacy. Individuals differed on the factors they considered important in calculating privacy expectations, yet all groups had robust privacy expectations across contexts. Second, outsiders have difficulty in understanding the privacy norms of a particular community. For managers and scholars, this renders privacy expectations more difficult to identify at a distance or in deductive research. The findings speak directly to the needs of organizations to manage a diverse set of privacy issues across stakeholder groups.

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Fig. 1
Fig. 2

Notes

  1. For example, Smith et al’s (1996) concern for information privacy (CFIP) survey instrument is used as a measure of an individual’s concern for privacy in general and within particular contexts, the authors note, “As privacy increases in importance, it behooves [us] to consider the complexity of individual’s concerns, the factors that may cause increased levels of concerns, and the outcomes of those concerns” (1996, p. 191). While the latter two ideas have been empirically investigated, we have yet to tackle unpacking the factors that individuals’ take into consideration in forming expectations of privacy for specific situations. As Smith et al. note, CFIP is not only applicable to particular contexts and situations but also should be “used in interpretive research on what the meaning of information privacy is for individuals …apart from and prior to whether a positivist theory would define it to be” (1996 emphasis added).

  2. A social contract approach to privacy offers three theoretical additions to analyze local privacy norms. First, locally negotiated, implicit social contracts are always beholden to structural, procedural, and (for some) substantive universal principles (van Oosterhout et al. 2006) to remain legitimate. Social contract approaches are multilevel, contextually rich frameworks allowing for specific contractors within a contracting community the moral free space to develop authentic and legitimate norms of behavior (Donaldson and Dunfee 1994). However, these local norms must also abide by the more universal and thin second order norms such as the rights of consent, voice, and exit (Donaldson and Dunfee 1994; Dunfee 2006; Heugens et al. 2006). As such, contracting has an internal morality without the need for external substantive guidance (van Oosterhout et al. 2006).

    In addition, these locally negotiated privacy norms can be analyzed through both actual and hypothetical social contracts to address “norms of decency, etiquette, sociability, convention, and morality” (Nissenbaum 2004; see also, Tavani 2008). While privacy as contextual integrity focuses on the actual negotiated privacy norms, social contract approach would add a possible additional layer of analysis in the form of the hypothetical social contract which would have moral weight. We could ask, what norms would reasonable individuals agree to given minimal social contract standards of consent, voice, and exit? Finally, social contract theory would suggest the prescriptive value in protecting the integrity of the boundaries of the contracting community and their moral free space and not only the norms within the space. In other words, viewing these negotiated privacy norms as a social contract highlights the moral importance in protecting the bounds of the context in Nissenbaum’s privacy as contextual integrity. If outsiders were to dictate the privacy norms of a group of co-workers or between a husband and wife, their rights of negotiating privacy norms would be violated. In fact, such a privacy intrusion or violation is referred to as decisional privacy (Allen 1999) or passive privacy (Floridi 2006).

  3. This is not the case for all examinations of social contract approach to ethical issues. For example, the claim of Bailey and Spicer (2007) is that different nationalities and nations have different local norms. As a social contract approach is used to explore more targeted communities, as has been called for in literature (Heugens et al. 2006; Dunfee 2006), the need for a ‘control’ community may be more necessary to isolate the impact of insider status on the particular community’s norms rather than a general change in disposition.

  4. In comparison, in experiments, factors are designed orthogonal to each other but manipulated one at a time; however, in a traditional survey, many factors are examined but are not necessarily orthogonal to each other (Appelbaum et al. 2006). Such an experimental design is useful for a “clean” test of theory (Levitt and List 2007).

  5. While the use of vignettes within surveys in business ethics is well established (Weber 1992), the factorial vignette survey methodology stems from sociology and is distinct in its methodology and analysis as explained below. See also Wallander (2009) for a review and Jasso (2006) for a technical article on the methodology; see Smith et al. (2007) for the single use of the methodology in business ethics.

  6. Respondent fatigue was a factor for some respondent groups. I created two dummy variables to signify vignette ratings with a sequence number over 30 and over 20. If the ordinal regression model demonstrated a significant impact on the rating task by either dummy variable, those associated vignette ratings were discarded for that model. The regression was rerun without the offending data. However, a larger design issue came from the respondents’ learning curve—presumably from the novelty of the survey design. Once the first two vignette ratings for each respondent (sequence numbers 1 and 2) were discarded for all respondents, the model fit criteria and parallel lines assumptions improved dramatically. I discarded all vignette ratings with a sequence number of 1 or 2 for the entire analysis.

  7. For ordinal variables, the outcome is at or below given outcome Y j . Ordinal dependent variables—such as the traditional Likert scale rating task used here—do not necessarily meet the assumptions required of traditional OLS models (O’Connell 2006; Kennedy 2003) which impacts analysis below.

  8. Statistically significant ORs are assessed by testing the significance of the regression coefficient using a Wald test. In addition, the fit of the model was determined using the goodness-of-fit statistics and the test of parallel lines.

  9. Other combinations were examined including those who ever played a sport, those who played IM or varsity, and those who played varsity athletics but with only 10–20 h/week. In addition, initial analysis did not differentiate based on sex. However, goodness-of-fit metrics did not indicate the models illustrated any agreement among these alternative respondent groups.

  10. For example, insiders see dating (∆β = −1.707), family (−1.163), and medical (−0.319) content as more “OK to Share” within the well-defined contracting scenarios as compared to the random team.

  11. I wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for pointing out this relationship between universal principles and the privacy norms found in this study.

  12. I wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for making this point.

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  1. The Catholic University of America, 309 McMahon Hall, 620 Michigan Ave NE, Washington, DC, 20064, USA

    Kirsten E. Martin

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Appendix

Appendix

Vignette Factors

 

Attributes

Dimensions

 

Operationalized

1

Space

0

Well defined—athletic team

On a varsity athletic team

1

Ill defined—randomly assigned group

On an assigned project team for a required class

2

Access

0

Give willingly

 

1

Coerced

[NAME]’s teammate only shared the information reluctantly after being chided by other students on the team

2

Overheard

[NAME] was not sure that his teammate realized that he heard/received the information

3

Content

0

Public

Housing decisions for next semester

1

Role based

Who is going to start for the next game/how the projects were assigned

2

Personal I

A date that went horribly wrong

3

Family

Problems with his mom

4

Private

An embarrassing medical condition

4

Location

0

Verbal inside role-based space

While in the locker room/study room…heard

1

Verbal outside role-based space

While in the cafeteria…heard

2

e-mail

While checking his messages….received an e-mail

3

Facebook newsfeed

While on Facebook…received a newsfeed

4

Facebook wall post

While on Facebook…saw a wall post

5

Distribution of information

0

Distributed within group

Other members of the team

1

Distributed to team leaders

Other members of the team including the coach

2

Distributed to captains

Other members of the team including the team captains

3

Distributed outside group

Students not on the team

6

Membership

0

New

New

1

Senior

Senior

Sample Vignettes

I n general :

[NAME] is a [MEMBERSHIP] college student [SPACE]. [LOCATION A] [NAME] [LOCATION B] from a fellow team member talking about [CONTENT]. [ACCESS]. The next day, [NAME] shared the information with [DISTRIBUTION]

S ample 1:

Ryan is a senior college student on an assigned project team for a required class . While on Facebook , Ryan received a newsfeed from a fellow team member talking about problems with his mom . Ryan was not sure that his teammate realized that he saw the information. The next day, Ryan shared the information with other students on the project team, including the professor .

S ample 2:

Kevin is a new college student on a varsity athletic team . While on Facebook , Kevin saw a wall post from a fellow team member talking about a date that went horribly wrong . Kevin was not sure that his teammate realized that he saw the information . The next day, Kevin shared the information with other members of the team .

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Martin, K.E. Diminished or Just Different? A Factorial Vignette Study of Privacy as a Social Contract. J Bus Ethics 111, 519–539 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-012-1215-8

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