Self-disclosure on Facebook : Social Network Site privacy and personal information disclosure of Germans and Norwegians - A cross-cultural comparison

Abstract: Social Network Site (SNS) users’ disclosed personal information is beneficial for marketers, as targeted advertising can be provided accordingly. This study identifies the three privacy concepts of concerns, attitudes and intentions, along with culture (i.e. Hofstede’s masculinity) to be key drivers of users’ self-disclosure on SNSs. Hence, this study evaluates these antecedents and their potential effect on self-disclosure, considering Facebook as the SNS of choice. To account for potential cross-cultural differences, data has been gathered via two online questionnaires, resulting in one German and one Norwegian sample of respondents. Multiple regression analyses were carried to evaluate the antecedents of self-disclosure and one-way ANOVA to examine potential differences amongst Germans and Norwegians. Results indicate that privacy intention is the strongest predictor of self-disclosure on SNSs; whereas privacy concerns and attitudes only reveal an indirect effect on self-disclosure. In addition, significant differences have been found for all of the constructs, indicating that there exist fundamental differences between Germans and Norwegians with regards to their cognitive processing behind personal information disclosure on SNSs.