Ilaria Serra’s research while affiliated with Florida Atlantic University and other places

The study examines differences in individual’s privacy concerns and beliefs about government surveillance in Italy and the United States. By incorporating aspects of multiple cultural theories, we argue that for both countries, the user’s decision to conduct e-commerce transactions on the Internet is influenced by privacy concerns, perceived need for government surveillance that would secure the Internet environment from fraud, crime and terrorism, and balancing concerns about government intrusion. An empirical model was tested using LISREL structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis. The results support the hypotheses with regard to direction and relative magnitude of the relationships. Italians exhibit lower Internet privacy concerns than individuals in the U.S., lower perceived need for government surveillance, and higher concerns about government intrusion. The relationships among the model constructs are also different across the two countries. Implications of the findings and directions for future work are discussed.

The study examines differences in individual’s privacy concerns and beliefs about government surveillance in Italy and the United States. By incorporating aspects of multiple cultural theories, we argue that for both countries, the user’s decision to conduct e-commerce transactions on the Internet is influenced by privacy concerns, perceived need for government surveillance that would secure the Internet environment from fraud, crime and terrorism, and balancing concerns about government intrusion. An empirical model was tested using LISREL structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis. The results support the hypotheses with regard to direction and relative magnitude of the relationships. Italians exhibit lower Internet privacy concerns than individuals in the U.S., lower perceived need for government surveillance, and higher concerns about government intrusion. The relationships among the model constructs are also different across the two countries. Implications of the findings and directions for future work are discussed.

This study examines cross-cultural differences beliefs related to e-commerce use for Italy and the United States. We argue that for both cultures, the user's decision to make an online purchase is simultaneously influenced by a set of contrary factors. These include decision facilitators such as propensity to trust and institutional trust, and decision inhibitors such as perceived risk and privacy concerns. We argue that substantial cultural differences exist that affect the above factors and the relationships among them. We use Hofstede's cultural theory and Fukuyama's theory of trust and social capital, along with emic factors important for the Italian society, to develop the study's propositions. The hypotheses were empirically tested using LISREL structural equation modeling and multigroup analysis. The results revealed that the Italian society exhibited lower propensity to trust, institutional trust, privacy concerns, and higher perceived risk. The relationships between institutional trust and e-commerce use, privacy concerns and e-commerce use, and perceived risk and institutional trust are all weaker for Italy. The relationship between perceived risk and privacy concerns is stronger for Italy. The paper's major contribution is in validating an important model of e-commerce use across two cultures and showing the moderating effects of culture.European Journal of Information Systems (2006) 15, 389–402. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ejis.3000590

This study examines cross-cultural differences in privacy trade-off factors as related to e-commerce use for Italy and the United States. By employing the model of trade-off factors, we argue that for both cultures the user's decision to make a purchase is influenced by trust, perceived vulnerability, and privacy concerns which are known to be among the most salient factors driving e-commerce. The empirical model was tested using LISREL structural equation modeling. We incorporated two of the most influential cultural theories -- Hofstede's cultural dimensions of individualism/collectivism and uncertainty avoidance, and Fukuyama's theory of trust and social capital. The importance of trust in the collectivist Italian society and privacy in the individualist U.S. society has been discussed using the etic and emic approaches of cultural research. The paper's major contribution is in integrating the cultural theories into the theoretical model and showing the moderating effects of culture. The results render support for the study's hypotheses and show that the Italian culture exhibits lower propensity to trust, lower institutional trust, and lower privacy concerns, and higher perceived vulnerability than the U.S. counterpart which, from its part, exhibits stronger relationships between the e-commerce use and the trade-off factors.