Yazan Alnsour and Ahmad H. Juma’h
Contact tracing apps have emerged to collect data and mitigate the spread of infectious diseases. However, privacy and security concerns have caused individuals to hesitate to…
Abstract
Purpose
Contact tracing apps have emerged to collect data and mitigate the spread of infectious diseases. However, privacy and security concerns have caused individuals to hesitate to adopt these solutions. Our objective is to evaluate the role of the political environment, information privacy, security and users’ intentions to use contact tracing apps.
Design/methodology/approach
We scraped the digital app store and collected 399 relevant reviews and other data from 21 contact tracing apps in the USA. A semi-supervised machine learning model was developed to extract information on privacy and security aspects from the reviews.
Findings
Our findings show a positive connection between security controls and user adoption, as reflected in star ratings. Users residing in states with blue political environments tend to assign higher ratings to apps, especially when robust security controls are in place. These findings confirm the influence of the political environment on the adoption of contact tracing apps. In times of a pandemic, our findings suggest that users prioritize security over privacy concerns, emphasizing the critical role of strong security features in promoting app acceptance.
Originality/value
This paper emphasizes the political environment of the state offering the app intersects with concerns about security and privacy as well as the effectiveness of security and privacy measures, influencing the app’s ratings. Also, it shows the importance of understanding and addressing the role of the political environment when designing and promoting such public health tools, regardless of the specific disease or outbreak.
Details
Keywords
Ahmad H. Juma'h and Yazan Alnsour
This paper aims to analyze the effect of data breaches – whose concerns and implications can be legal, social and economic – on companies’ overall performance.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze the effect of data breaches – whose concerns and implications can be legal, social and economic – on companies’ overall performance.
Design/methodology/approach
Information on data breaches was collected from online compilations, and financial data on breached companies was collected from the Mergent Online database. The financial variables used were related to profitability, liquidity, solvency and company size to analyze the financial performance of the breached companies before and after the data breach event. Nonfinancial data, such as the type and the size of the breaches, was also collected. The data was analyzed using multiple regression.
Findings
The results confirm that nonmandatory information related to announcements of data breaches is a signal of companies’ overall performance, as measured by profitability ratios, return on assets and return on equity. The study does not confirm a relationship between data breaches and stock market reaction when measuring quarterly changes in share prices.
Research limitations/implications
The main limitation of the study relates to ratio and trend analyses. Such analyses are commonly used when researching accounting information. However, they do not directly reflect the companies’ conditions and realities, and they rely on companies’ released financial reports. Another limitation concerns the confounding factors. The major confounding factors around the data breaches’ dates were identified; however, this was not enough to assure that other factors were not affecting the companies’ financial performance. Because of the nature of such events, this study needs to be replicated to include specific information about the companies using case studies. Therefore, the authors recommend replicating the research to validate the article’s findings when each industry makes more announcements available.
Practical implications
To remediate the risks and losses associated with data breaches, companies may use their reserved funds.
Social implications
Company data breach announcements signal internal deficiencies. Therefore, the affected companies become liable to their employees, customers and investors.
Originality/value
The paper contributes to both theory and practice in the areas of accounting finance, and information management.