Influence of national culture on complaint for personal data protection breach
(A2020-62567)

AUTHORS

Christelle Aubert Hassouni, emlyon business school; Sandrine Macé, ESCP Business School; Béatrice Parguel, CNRS

KEYWORDS

Culture; Personal data protection; Consumer complaint

ABSTRACT

In recognizing that personal data protection is a central topic of our societies, Europe has adopted the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in 2018. Eight months later, a status report reveals a large variance across European countries in the data protection breach complaints made to regulators. This paper contributes to the literature on privacy concern and examines the influence of national culture on data protection breach complaints to the regulators. Relying on the literature developed on the influence of national culture on privacy concern and on the main dimensions of the Hofstede’s model as applied to Europe, we show that European countries valuing more individualism tend to complain more while European countries valuing more masculinity tend to complain less regarding personal data protection breach. Relevant implications regarding consumer protection are discussed.