JUAN CODERCH

The goal of this literature review was to provide rich insights on the latest research on SID in EIS and IS in general in order to better understand the inhibitors and drivers of the readiness of employees to disclose sensitive information in software solutions. The review has shown that there is little to no literature on an employee’s willingness to provide sensitive information to enterprise information systems. This is supported by Buettner (2015), who points out that there is a research gap regarding usage intention and disclosure behavior of employees. Furthermore, he argued that the previous research was mainly focused on the benefits for businesses when implementing SNS within their companies and was not investigated from the perspective of the employee and their willingness to participate, which is nonetheless crucial for SNS success. In addition, in privacy research there has been demand for the extension of research focus beyond consumer settings and social networks in order to examine organizational contexts (Bélanger and Crossler 2011; Smith et al. 2011). The findings from these literature observations are motivating for further research in the direction of influencing factors on SID in EIS. For this purpose, the present review helps to provide better understanding of important contributions to the Internet and online context. While the primary focus of researchers is on the trade-off between privacy concerns and risks and on the opposing perceived benefits of exposure, research

has also revealed that information sensitivity, legal regulations, personality traits or cultural differences are significant inhibitors or drivers of SID (see Figure 3 and Table 6). However, central influencing factors are trust in the vendor or online community, perceived benefits (such as relationship maintenance), perceived risks, and privacy concerns related to disclosure on the Internet.

Research considering the enterprise context should investigate whether these decisive aspects are also relevant in the organizational setting when employees are asked to contribute sensitive information in enterprise systems.

3.4.1. Implications

With regard to critical influencing factors on an employee’s disclosure behavior in EIS, this study shows that there is a need for research on this topic. The focus of present studies on information disclosure is on public SNS, e-commerce and the Internet in general. The findings of this review provide valuable insights regarding the factors influencing SNS, e-commerce websites, and Internet success by showing when users disclose information. Future empirical research could use the results as a starting point, conducting qualitative or quantitative studies in the context of EIS to better understand if influencing factors of sensitive information disclosure research can also be applied in this regard and to identify possible further dynamics and factors affecting the willingness to disclose sensitive information into EIS. Along these lines, it was found that privacy research is one of the main research streams, focusing on the self-disclosure topic. As companies implement SNS more and more to support collaboration and increase business success, it could be a good starting point to investigate the information disclosure behavior of employees in so- called Enterprise Social Systems (ESS) with regard to privacy research.

Furthermore, research has the potential opportunity to find out how specific influencing factors, such as trust or privacy concern should be applied in the organizational context. Both constructs are implemented in different ways in the non-enterprise context, whereas some definitions and operationalization might not be applicable in the enterprise context. This should be clarified in future research, as the relationships between the provider and users of a software solution are of a different nature. Employees might have a more professional relationship with other employees contributing within ESS, as well as to the employer, who is probably the host of the ESS.

Regarding benefits, it can be concluded that not all benefits have the same positive impact on SID in IS. As an example, in e-commerce contexts it is noteworthy that, when offered monetary rewards or compensation in exchange for information provision, consumers might react with information refusal or misrepresentation (Li and Sarathy 2007; Yang and Wang 2009) since they do not want to see their personal information treated as a valueable commodity (Hoffman et al. 1999). This might also be valid for the employer-employee context. When employers want to trade rewards for information, the sensitivity and perceived relevance of the requested information play a significant role, as employees may not want their information to be treated

as an valueable commodity. When employees perceive that the requested information is sensitive and that it is being treated as a cheap commodity, they might refuse disclosure. This fact should be considered when conducting further studies in the context of EIS and privacy of employees. There are missing insights on what really motivates employees to disclose sensitive information in the sense of perceived benefits. Therefore, research should be conducted to find out how companies could incentivize their workforce to make enterprise systems where employees have to disclose sensitive information successful.

3.4.2. Limitations and Further Research

The results underlie limitations that indicate paths for further research. First, adolescent research on self-disclosure was excluded from the research. While this research is critical, I believe that focusing on topic areas closer to the actual context of information disclosure in EIS of employees, who are mainly grown adults, better reflected the behavior. Research on adolescents’ SID behavior in SNS does not represent the target group of employees.

Furthermore, research focusing on the comparison of face-to-face and computer-mediated interaction was also excluded from the review. This kind of investigation is mainly focused on the differences between direct and indirect communication with computers and the related changing willingness of disclosure when communicating either face-to-face or through a technological medium. However, this research could offer further insights on the disclosure intention of people in general and might provide an opportunity to further generalize the findings.

In addition, only the most relevant papers and conference proceedings of information disclosure in IS were included in the sample. The sampling was based on the quality of the conference or journal and the number of citations (VHB-JOURQUAL 3 Ranking). The less relevant contributions were, however, also screened on the surface to make sure that no possible trend was missed and a deep analysis of those contributions could also help to gain further insights on SID of people both in general and in the employee context.