Data vulnerability: does privacy protection behaviour improve digital well-being?

This study aims to determine the relationship among data vulnerability, privacy concerns, privacy protection behaviours and online subjective well-being, with a focus on the moderating role of customers’ emotional exhaustion.

Data was collected from 706 participants in the USA using an online survey. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data.

Data vulnerability increases privacy concerns, which in turn influence privacy protection behaviours. There was a positive relationship between online well-being and proactive protection behaviour, whereas reactive responses did not have a significant impact on online well-being. Emotional exhaustion augmented the impact of data vulnerability on privacy concerns and the effect of privacy concerns on reactive protection behaviours. The negative impact of vulnerability on consumers’ well-being was weakened in the presence of high emotional exhaustion.

Privacy concerns play a central role in the relationship between vulnerability, behavioural responses (i.e. protection behaviours) and consumers’ well-being. However, effective measures to improve customer privacy need to consider the presence of emotional exhaustion.

Privacy concerns play a central role in the relationship between vulnerability, behavioural responses (i.e. protection behaviours) and consumers’ well-being. Firms’ initiatives such as privacy by design and rights management are highly recommended because they prevent privacy-pervasive events and ensure minimal malicious and accidental breaches, thereby reducing customer vulnerability.

This study uniquely explores the role of emotional exhaustion in shaping customers’ coping mechanisms for privacy issues, which, in turn, affects their subjective online well-being. It also introduces and validates the scales for measuring both proactive and reactive privacy protection behaviours.