Influence of national culture on complaint for personal data protection breach
(R2020-84902)

AUTHORS

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

KEYWORDS

Culture; Personal data protection; Consumer complaint

ABSTRACT

Recognizing importance of personal data protection, Europe has adopted the General Data Protection Regulation in May 2018. Eight months later, a large variance in data protection breach complaints made to regulators has been reported across European countries. This paper examines the influence of national culture on those complaints, hence contributing to the privacy concern literature. Relying on the literature developed on national culture influence on privacy concern and on a revised Hofstede’s model reduced to two main dimensions in a European context, we show that European countries valuing more individualism tend to complain more conversely to countries valuing more masculinity.