Privacy Orientation

Privacy orientation in Canadian corporations

To what extent are major Canadian corporations aware of the issues involved in processing personal data? What can be done to increase levels of corporate accountability?

Research team:
Kathleen Greenaway
GPD Postdoctoral fellow

Yolande Chan
Queen's School of Business

Kathleen Greenaway investigated in 2004 how three Canadian financial institutions constructed their privacy regimes in response to the twin pressures of increased technological capacity to exploit customers' personal information and the need to address the requirements of PIPEDA. This response is captured in a construct called information privacy orientation (IPO). Privacy orientation in Canadian corporations

To what extent are major Canadian corporations aware of the issues involved in processing personal data? What can be done to increase levels of corporate accountability?

Research team:
Kathleen Greenaway
GPD Postdoctoral fellow

Yolande Chan
Queen's School of Business

Kathleen Greenaway investigated in 2004 how three Canadian financial institutions constructed their privacy regimes in response to the twin pressures of increased technological capacity to exploit customers' personal information and the need to address the requirements of PIPEDA. This response is captured in a construct called information privacy orientation (IPO).

Greenaway conducted two studies. The first evaluated the privacy policies of 10 Canadian financial institutions. The second study was an intensive, multiple case study of three financial institutions to assess the different firms' positioning on the Information Privacy Continuum.

This research contributes to our understanding of information privacy as an organizational level phenomenon. It explicates the IPO by extending the Marketing Ethics Continuum (Smith 1995) into information privacy, information systems, and marketing research. It provides several research instruments developed specifically for IPO investigation. The research also affords insight into the reasons for similarity and variance in firms' privacy behaviors through the application of two theoretical approaches, the institutional approach and the resource-based view of the firm. In addition, Greenaway demonstrated that the IPO Contingency Framework provides a useful device for considering the context for privacy decision-making in firms. It is also useful to managers seeking guidance about the choices they make in their privacy regimes.

A website study of customer Information Privacy Orientation in Canadian retail institutions is planned for 2005-2006.