Arthur, Kojo2021-08-042021-08-042020https://hdl.handle.net/10539/31449A dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Commerce, 2020The internet has become part of modern everyday life. People are increasingly using the internet for business, social and other aspects of their lives. Use of the Internet in the modern context, however, requires sharing of some personal information (PI) online. To enjoy the benefits of online use, some individuals may be willing to share their PI regardless of the risks. Others, however, may be reluctant to share their PI online due to the threats and potential harm that may be caused by improper handling and use of PI. Information systems (IS) researchers have thus been interested in exploring the factors that influence individual intentions to share PI online. This paper’s contribution to IS privacy research is in the form of an enhanced Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) model by adopting and extending Rogers’ (1975) Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) model to include elements of trust and risk, and by addressing the research question “What Factors Affect Individual Intentions to Share PI Online?”. By answering the research question, this report has resulted in an increased understanding of factors that relate to individuals’ information privacy concerns and their intended behaviours when considering the use of online services. The study also contributed to IS privacy research by adding to the literature on the privacy concept and information privacy concerns in South Africa. This study has provided empirical evidence to support practitioners by helping them acknowledge that as their services become more personalised, individual intentions to share their PI online is linked to their concerns for privacy and ultimately their intentions to use such services. This study was informed by the positivist paradigm as it proceeded deductively to develop and test the relationships that make up the conceptual framework of the study. Considering that this study was based on advances in technology used for commercial and governmental services as well as social interactions that are driven by personalisation, this study used a self-administered online survey questionnaire to gather data to measure the proposed conceptual model’s variables. The questionnaire was developed in eSurveyCreator and distributed to the study’s research sample population through emails and Facebook and WhatsApp social media platforms. The useable sample consisted of 152 South African Internet users with access to email, Facebook or WhatsApp.The study contributed by showing the efficiency of online survey questionnaire distribution techniques through social media platforms to reach sample populations. Limitations to internal validity and generalizability were acknowledged, and these arise from the studies context, the research population and the idea that factors such as social awareness and internet literacy found to be mediating factors for concerns for privacy by other research was not considered in the scope of this study. This meant that the lack of temporal precedence in the data collected could lead to causal inferences, and any causal assumptions that readers wanted to make should be concerning relevant literature and theory. Results of the study's demographic analysis highlighted that the respondents were predominantly employed males between the ages of 25 to 35 living in the Gauteng region of South Africa. Furthermore, principal component analysis of the study’s measurement instruments confirmed the validity and the reliability of the study's construct items. Correlation and regression analysis to test and show the strength, as well as direction of relationships between the conceptual model constructs, was also performed. The results revealed that seven out of eight of the paper’s hypothesis were supported (H1 and H3 to H8) and one was rejected (H2).The study closed off by highlighting its contributions. With the most significant factors affecting privacy concerns being those related to threat appraisal processes: that is, perceived vulnerability and perceived severity. Another factor, not PMT related that was found to be a significant antecedent to privacy concerns was perceived online risk. The study concluded by giving some suggestions for future research. In general, it was suggested that while PMT is an established theory that has been adopted to study privacy concerns, there might be an opportunity to extend PMT by looking at other behavioural models, especially those that include fear or concern related factors such as risk and trustenThesis