An Experimental Study on U-Commerce Adoption: The Impact of Personalization and Privacy Concerns

U-commerce represents “anytime, anywhere” commerce, which is believed to be the ultimate form of commerce. Ucommerce can provide a high level of personalization, which can bring additional benefits and values to customers. However, despite these promises and potential benefits, customers’ privacy is a major concern and obstacle to the adoption of ucommerce. As customers’ intention to adopt u-commerce is based on the aggregate effect of perceived benefits and risk exposure (e.g., privacy concerns), this research examines how personalization and context can impact on customers’ perceived benefits and privacy concerns, and how this aggregated effect in turn affects u-commerce adoption intention. As ucommerce is very new and visionary, the scenario-based method will be used to operationalize the two variables – personalization and context – through the use of an experiment. As one of the first research to empirically investigate personalization and privacy in u-commerce, this research contributes to an increased understanding of u-commerce and its adoption.