Consumers' ethical perceptions of social media analytics practices: risks, benefits and potential outcomes

The increased leveraging of social media by organizations to derive business value has created concerns about the practice of social media analytics (SMA). While SMA may be beneficial for organizations and consumers alike, there is concern that it is not practiced with ethical care. In this study, we identify and model outcomes of ethical perceptions of SMA practices and organizational trustworthiness with data collected from 316 social media users. We also examine the roles of perceived risk and benefits in facilitating, or not, these outcomes. Results show that unfavorable ethical perceptions of SMA practices and low trustworthiness lead to perceived risk of sharing information, and subsequently to negative outcomes such as, unwillingness to reveal and falsification of information, as well as taking actions against organizations. We also find that perceived benefits moderate the relationship between perceived risk of sharing information and outcomes. The findings have significant theoretical implications and practical utility for organizations.