International Journal of Information Management 50 (2020) 45–56

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Information Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijinfomgt

Examining gender differences in people’s information-sharing decisions on T

social networking sites
⁎
Xiaolin Lina, Xuequn Wangb,
a
Department of Computer Information and Decision Management, Paul and Virginia Engler College of Business, West Texas A&M University, Canyon, TX, United States
b
Discipline of Information Technology, Mathematics and Statistics, College of Science, Health, Engineering and Education, Murdoch University, Perth, WA, 6150, Australia

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Information systems research provides increasing evidence that women and men differ in their use of in-
Gender formation technology. However, research has not sufficiently explained why these differences exist. Using the
Information-sharing decisions theory of reasoned action and social role theory, this paper investigates gender differences in people’s decisions
Social networking sites about information sharing in the context of social networking sites (SNSs). We developed a comparative model of
Social role theory
the information-sharing decision process across genders and theoretically explained why these differences exist.
Data was collected from an online survey taken by American SNS users. We found that privacy risks, social ties,
and commitment were more important in the formation of attitudes toward information sharing for women than
men. Gender significantly moderates the relationship between people’s perceptions of information sharing and
their intention to share information. This paper provides an enhanced understanding of gender differences in
people’s decisions about sharing information on SNSs. It advances gender differences research into the use of
newly emerged information technology and provides researchers insightful views of the role that gender plays in
the social media era. Being aware of the research findings, practitioners may better engage their targeted sta-
keholders on SNSs and collect more useful information for business purposes.

1. Introduction Previous studies that investigated the antecedents of information

Social networking sites (SNSs) enable people to share a variety of
information online. Increasingly, people are participating on SNSs to
share, request, and acquire information and knowledge or to just have
fun and resolve the problems they have encountered in their daily lives.
A report shows that, every 60 s, 510,000 comments are posted, 293,000
statuses are updated, and 136,000 photos are uploaded on Facebook
(Noyes, 2019). Further, about 32% of Facebook users regularly engage
with brands (Osman, 2018). For example, people share their personal
shopping information with other SNS users and provide or receive so-
cial support in purchase decisions (Liang, Ho, Li, & Turban, 2011;
Prentice, Wang, & Lin, 2018; Wang, Lin, & Spencer, 2019). Such user-
generated content enables people to make better-informed purchase
decisions because shopping information received from other users on
SNSs is viewed as more valuable than that from traditional marketing
vehicles (Trusov, Bucklin, & Pauwels, 2009). Users’ information sharing
is a key factor that affects people’s online purchase behavior (Liang
et al., 2011; Stephen & Toubia, 2009; Trusov et al., 2009). Thus, there is
a growing interest in examining the factors that influence users’ in-
formation sharing on SNSs.
sharing have explicated the role that various constructs (e.g., trust and
social ties) play in users’ information- and knowledge-sharing behavior
on SNSs, such as blogs (Lu, Lin, Hsiao, & Cheng, 2010) and virtual
communities (Chiu, Hsu, & Wang, 2006; Hsu, Ju, Yen, & Chang, 2007).
Those studies about information sharing have generally assumed that
each gender bases its information-sharing behavior on similar criteria
and that genders make decisions on information sharing equivalently
(e.g. Acquisti & Gross, 2006; Constant, Kiesler, & Sproull, 1994;
Jarvenpaa & Staples, 2000). However, few studies have attempted to
examine the role of gender in information-sharing behavior. In the In-
formation Systems (IS) discipline, it has been concluded that gender’s
role in IS research has been underrepresented and needs to be more
theorized (X. Lin, Califf, & Featherman, 2012; Trauth, 2013). Trauth
(2013) pointed out that “there isn’t enough gender and IS research
being published” (298) and underscored the need for IS researchers to
explain gender differences explicitly in the use of information tech-
nology (IT). To address this gap, our work aims to systematically ex-
amine gender effects on online users’ information-sharing behavior on
SNSs. Rather than assume that both genders share information
equivalently, the aim of this study is to test the moderating role and to

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: xlin@wtamu.edu (X. Lin), xuequnwang1600@gmail.com (X. Wang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2019.05.004
Received 16 January 2019; Received in revised form 18 April 2019; Accepted 8 May 2019
Available online 21 May 2019
0268-4012/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
X. Lin and X. Wang
explain theoretically gender differences in information-sharing beha-
vior on SNSs. As such, this study is among the very first to provide a
detailed analysis of the moderating effects of gender on users’ decision-
making about sharing information on SNSs, rather than just exploring
the role of gender as a moderator. Additionally, a deeper understanding
about the effect of gender differences on users’ information-sharing
behavior can provide firms with further insights regarding how to
promote their products and services more efficiently (Krasnova, Veltri,
Eling, & Buxmann, 2017; Lin, Featherman, Sarker, & Management,
2017). Therefore, a detailed analysis of gender differences and its ef-
fects on users’ information behavior on SNSs will have important im-
plications for both academicians and practitioners.
The social role theory (SRT) was chosen as the theoretical founda-
tion to explain and theorize gender effects in our study (please refer to
2.3 Social Role Theory for an explanation). It has been demonstrated to
be an appropriate theory for studying gender differences in various
research contexts, such as Facebook continuance (Lin, Li, Califf, &
Featherman, 2013) and bloggers’ knowledge-sharing behaviors (Chai,
Das, & Rao, 2011). The SRT suggests that men and women play dif-
ferent social roles that may affect their social behavior due to different
societal and cultural expectations (Archer, 1996; Eagly & Wood, 1991).
Different social roles are likely to lead to behavioral differences be-
tween genders in a specific environment—here, SNSs. As such, the SRT
can serve as a foundation for providing a detailed analysis of the
moderating role in people’s information-sharing behavior on SNSs.
To execute a detailed analysis of the moderating effects of gender on
information-sharing behavior in the context of SNSs, we propose a
baseline model by integrating SNS environmental constructs into the
theory of reasoned action (TRA). Specifically, based on the literature
(please refer to 2.2 Theory of Reasoned Action & Conceptual Baseline
Model for details), we identify the design (i.e., social presence), security
(i.e., privacy risk), and personal (i.e., commitment and social ties)
factors of the TRA to examine individuals’ formation of attitudes toward
information sharing. Please note that the goal of this study is to provide
a detailed analysis of the moderating role of gender on the effects of
proposed SNS-oriented constructs on people’s decision-making about
information sharing, not to test the baseline model. Specifically, we
seek to address the following research questions:
• Do genders perceive different levels of importance regarding SNS
environmental constructs in the formation of their attitudes toward
sharing information?
• Does gender moderate the effects of individuals’ psychological
perceptions on their information-sharing decisions?
Based on the above discussion of these important missing elements
in online information- sharing research and gender differences in the
literature, we develop a comparative model to understand the differ-
ences in information-sharing decision-making across genders by
achieving two primary objectives in this study:
• Integrate SNS environmental constructs into the TRA and in-
corporate gender as a moderator to study individuals’ decision-
making about information sharing on SNSs.
• Theoretically explain how gender differences affect SNS environ-
mental constructs in the formation of people’s attitudes toward in-
formation sharing on SNSs.
The sections of this paper are organized as follows. First, we provide
a literature review of the theoretical foundations that lead to our re-
search model and justifications for our hypotheses. Next, the chosen
research methodology, data analysis, and results are presented. Finally,
we conclude with our theoretical contributions and practical implica-
tions.
46
International Journal of Information Management 50 (2020) 45–56
2. Literature review and theoretical background
In this section, first, we discuss the background of the research (i.e.,
information sharing on SNSs and the role of gender), then review both
the TRA and SRT, and subsequently present our research model by
introducing the constructs and discussing why they are incorporated
into our model.
2.1. Information sharing on SNSs and the role of gender
Users share various kinds of information, such as their status up-
dates, experiences, comments, and advertisements on SNSs, such as
Facebook and Twitter. The shared information has created many op-
portunities for businesses to gain economic values for both external and
internal business decisions. For example, eBay has added SNSs for
customers to share the links to specific items on the website. A single
click on a Facebook “Like” button has been found to be associated with
two additional voucher sales and an increase of $215 in revenue (Li &
Wu, 2013). Because of the popularity of posting about products and
services, information sharing has enabled SNSs to become the leading
and biggest sources of consumer data (Bowden, 2014). Using in-
formation mining techniques, such data could be transformed into
useful information and actionable knowledge for businesses to improve
their financial profits (Gopal, Marsden, & Vanthienen, 2011; Xu, Wang,
Li, & Haghighi, 2017). Further, SNSs can facilitate online brand com-
munities (e.g., Facebook fan pages), and companies can gain a large
amount of customer-generated content, which helps them to sustain
important competitive advantages, such as branding co-creation, brand
loyalty, and social capital through users’ engagement and social inter-
actions (Kamboj, Sarmah, Gupta, & Dwivedi, 2018; Kapoor et al., 2018;
Shiau, Dwivedi, & Yang, 2017; Shiau, Dwivedi, & Lai, 2018). Users’
information-sharing behavior is what offers companies opportunities to
gain ample information to support business analytics and figure out
usage patterns and customer preferences in SNSs (Dwivedi, Kapoor, &
Chen, 2015; Shareef, Mukerji, Alryalat, Wright, & Dwivedi, 2018).
Therefore, understanding people’s decision-making about information
sharing on SNSs is essential for helping businesses to engage their
customers and achieve economic values (Alalwan, Rana, Dwivedi, &
Algharabat, 2017; Liang et al., 2011; Stephen & Toubia, 2009).
Gender may affect the way people share their information and how
they use it to make their decisions. For example, in online commu-
nication, women are more likely to express their opinions subjectively
and express emotions than men (Zhang, Dang, & Chen, 2013). As more
and more people are sharing information on SNSs, questions have been
raised regarding the effect of gender differences on their decisions when
engaged in such usage behaviors. In IS research, gender differences
have been studied in the adoption and use of IT (e.g. Ahuja & Thatcher,
2005; Venkatesh & Morris, 2000; Venkatesh, Thong, & Xu, 2012).
Women are more strongly influenced by subjective norms and per-
ceived ease of use, and men are more strongly influenced by their
perceptions of usefulness in their decision to use a new technology (V.
Venkatesh & Morris, 2000). In more recent studies, given the ad-
vancement of Web 2.0, gender differences have been transferred and
tested in the context of SNSs. For example, Zhang, Lee, Cheung, and
Chen (2009) studied gender differences in bloggers’ service-switching
behavior and demonstrated that gender differences exist in both the
effects of satisfaction and attractive alternatives in regard to their in-
tention to switch. Lin et al. (2013) found that men and women base
decisions to continue using Facebook by assigning different weights to
factors such as perceived ease of use and perceived reputations. All
these studies indicate that men and women base their decisions about
continued IT usage on different factors and/or different weights of the
same factors. It is not shocking that men and women use SNSs differ-
ently as well as with varying frequencies (e.g. Joinson, 2008; Mazman,
2011). Therefore, companies should pay attention to such differences
when developing their business strategies. For example, Facebook’s
X. Lin and X. Wang
“Like” button has been added by eBay to its top listings so that custo-
mers can share and recommend specific products and services on Fa-
cebook. This kind of recommendation from a friend is more likely to
increase women’s intentions to purchase compared to men (Garbarino
& Strahilevitz, 2004).
In addition, Bond (2009) focuses on the types of topics that women
and men share on SNSs. The researcher finds that women are more
likely to share a variety of topics, whereas men are more likely to share
information about sports. More recently, Sun, Wang, Shen, and Zhang
(2015)) examined how women and men perceive differently the ben-
efits and risks (i.e., privacy risk) associated with information sharing.
They found that a perceived benefit has a stronger effect on informa-
tion-sharing intention for men, whereas privacy risk has a stronger
impact on women. Although these studies are helpful, they do not focus
on the effect of design and personal factors across genders. As described
below, our study will provide a detailed analysis of gender differences
on SNSs by examining how design, security, and personal factors in-
fluence individuals’ information-sharing behavior. To accomplish our
objective, our research utilizes two theoretical foundations: TRA and
SRT. We used the TRA to develop our conceptual baseline model of
information sharing on SNSs; the SRT serves as the theoretical frame in
which to posit that the influence of each construct on individuals’ in-
formation-sharing decisions varies by gender. Below, we describe in
detail our two theoretical lenses and why they are appropriate for our
study.
2.2. Theory of reasoned action and conceptual baseline model
The TRA, proposed by Fishbein and Ajzen (1975), provides a gen-
eral theoretical model of behavior that focuses on attitudes and social
beliefs. Specifically, the TRA is based on the proposition that an in-
dividual’s behavior is determined by his or her intention to perform that
behavior. Attitude toward the behavior is defined as “a person’s general
feeling of favorableness or unfavorableness for that behavior” (Ajzen &
Fishbein, 1980, p.6). The TRA has been used by IS researchers through
its application to technology adoption (Loch & Conger, 1996;
Venkatesh & Morris, 2000). Applying TRA to the research question of
SNS information sharing behavior would suggest that an individual’s
intention to share information is determined by that individual’s atti-
tude and subjective norms regarding sharing information in an SNS. An
individual’s behavioral intention refers to that person's relative strength
of intention to share information in an SNS. An individual’s attitude is a
person’s belief about the consequences of sharing information on an
SNS multiplied by the evaluation of this behavior. The subjective norm
is a combination of perceived expectations from influential persons or
groups of persons and their intention to act according to what those
influential persons think.
We selected the TRA for our study for two main reasons. First,
people’s social behaviors essentially follow the same process (Fishbein
& Ajzen, 2011). Therefore, it makes sense to use a small set of con-
structs (i.e., attitude and subjective norms) from the TRA to explain
people’s information sharing on SNSs so the model can deal with new
variations of information sharing on SNSs when they arise (Fishbein &
Ajzen, 2011). Second, the TRA allows us to examine SNS-specific fac-
tors (discussed below) and understand the role they play in the process
of information sharing (Fishbein & Ajzen, 2011). To summarize, the
TRA provides a stable model for testing salient factors posited to affect
information-sharing decisions on SNSs. Thus, the TRA is appropriate for
use as our primary theoretical lens in this study.
Prior studies have indicated that both SNS environments and per-
sonal factors have effects on users’ online information-sharing behavior
(Chai et al., 2011; Chiu et al., 2006; Lu et al., 2010). Based on the
literature, our study selects design, security, and personal factors to
examine individuals’ formation of attitudes toward information
sharing. First, social presence has been considered a main feature of
SNSs (Aula, 2010; Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010) and been studied as a
47
International Journal of Information Management 50 (2020) 45–56
factor positively related to people’s attitudes (Campbell, Wright, & Clay,
2010). Therefore, our study selects social presence as the design feature
for SNSs. Second, security is usually a major concern that influences
users’ behaviors on the Web. Because this research investigates in-
formation, we focus on privacy risks, rather than a more base measure
of security concerns (M. S. Featherman, Miyazaki, & Sprott, 2010).
Third, commitment and social ties have been reported to have effects on
information-sharing behavior in the context of SNSs (Chai et al., 2011;
Liang et al., 2011). Those two factors are also consistent with the main
feature of SNSs, to support individuals’ relationship development and
maintenance. Therefore, we selected commitment and social ties as the
personal factors.
To summarize, SNS environments (including design features and
security issues) and personal factors (social ties and commitment) are
proposed as important determinants for users’ intentions to share in-
formation on SNSs. More specifically, we adopt social presence, privacy
risk, social ties, and commitment as antecedents of attitude toward
information sharing, which in turn affect users’ information-sharing
intentions. This serves as our baseline model to test the moderating role
of gender on information-sharing behavior.
2.3. Social role theory
Prior studies have provided a few gender theories that explain the
moderating role of gender in different research contexts (Adam, 2002;
Ahuja & Thatcher, 2005; Trauth, 2002, 2006; Trauth, Quesenberry, &
Huang, 2009). For example, the individual differences theory and
gender and information technology (IDTGIT) extends social construc-
tion theory by further recognizing individual differences in their in-
volvement with IT (Trauth, 2002, 2006; Trauth & Quesenberry, 2007).
IDTGIT can meaningfully explain gender issues in the IS discipline by
focusing on the IT workforce and has been applied to several studies in
this research stream (e.g. Adya, 2008; Eileen M Trauth, Quesenberry, &
Huang, 2008). For another example, Venkatesh and Morris (2000) used
gender essentialism theory to investigate how gender affects users’ IT
adoption decisions. Ahuja and Thatcher (2005) employed gender
schema theory to study how gender moderates the influences on work
environments and attempts to innovate with IT. Those theories are
primarily used to explain the role of gender in the adoption and use of
IT from the typical biological and psychological perspectives.
Our study focuses on online users’ information-sharing behavior on
SNSs, which is typically viewed as a social–technical system (Boyd &
Ellison, 2007). Information-sharing behavior enables people to interact
with each other on SNSs, which can facilitate their social relationships
(Ellison, Vitak, Gray, & Lampe, 2014; Lin, 2001). To explicate gender
differences theoretically regarding people’s reactions to information-
sharing behavior in such a social–technical system, it is necessary to
elaborate on how men and women view and act differently on SNSs.
Archer (1996) posited that all the types of social behavior may be
framed by two distinguishing terms across genders: women are com-
munal and men are agentic. Genders’ social behaviors are likely to
contribute to gender differences in such information-sharing social
behavior on SNSs. Therefore, it would be more suitable to explain
gender differences based on the SRT, which focuses on genders’ dif-
ferent social roles within SNS communities (Eagly, Wood, & Diekman,
2000), rather than on biological and psychological differences. The SRT
is thus suitable for theorizing gender issues and explaining gender ef-
fects in this study; therefore, it serves as our theoretical foundation
regarding the explanation of gender differences.
Additionally, the SRT posits that women and men behave differently
because of their distributions into different social roles in a specific
environment (Eagly & Wood, 1991; Eagly, 1987; Eagly et al., 2000).
These behavioral differences derive from the typical characteristics of
roles commonly held by women versus men (Eagly et al., 2000 p. 126).
Men are more technology and task oriented, and women are more social
and people oriented on SNS platforms. In particular, women tend to
X. Lin and X. Wang
show facilitative and friendly behaviors that can be termed communal,
which indicates that they tend to act in social- and people-oriented
environments. In contrast, men favor a pattern of assertive and in-
dependent behaviors, which indicates that they tend to act in task-or-
iented environments. The SRT has been confirmed to be valid in ex-
plaining and investigating gender differences in IS disciplines, such as
bloggers’ switching behaviors (Zhang, Lee, Cheung, & Chen, 2009) and
knowledge-sharing behavior on blogs (Chai et al., 2011), In a more
recent study, the SRT was used to explain users’ continued use of Fa-
cebook (Lin et al., 2013). This current study uses the SRT as a primary
theoretical lens to explore gender differences in information-sharing
behavior in the context of SNSs.
3. Research model and hypothesis development
3.1. Research model
Our goal is not to investigate the effects of the aforementioned
constructs on an individual’s decision about sharing information on
SNSs in general but also to investigate possible gender differences in the
influence of these aforementioned constructs, which have been de-
monstrated to affect individuals’ attitudes toward information sharing
on SNSs. The study’s objective is to provide a detailed analysis of
gender differences in information-sharing behavior on SNSs. Fig. 1
shows our research model and each hypothesis. Below, we present these
constructs in detail and then explain how these factors may affect users’
information-sharing behavior differentially across genders on SNSs.
3.2. Effect of social presence on attitudes across genders
Social presence refers to “the salience of the other in a mediated
communication and the consequent salience of their interpersonal in-
teractions” (Short, Williams, & Christie, 1976 p. 65). IS researchers
have generally studied social presence with users’ perceptions, such as
attitude and satisfaction with online advertisements (Campbell et al.,
2010) as well as user satisfaction in a computer-mediated environment
(Tang & Wang, 2011). In the context of SNSs, social presence is a core
technology characteristic that can create a more approachable and
comfortable environment among communication entities. Such a
Fig. 1. Research model.
Note: F > M indicates that the relationship is hypothesized to have a greater weight for females compared to males.
48
International Journal of Information Management 50 (2020) 45–56
construct also persists in an SNS environment and allows users to in-
teract with other members. In this vein, social presence is considered an
important factor that will affect users’ willingness to share information
on SNSs.
According to the SRT, men view SNSs in a more task-oriented
manner, whereas women view them as more social-oriented environ-
ments (Eagly & Wood, 1991; Lin et al., 2013). In the context of SNSs,
social presence addresses the degree to which users’ interpersonal in-
teractions with other members will affect users’ behavior. Research
suggests that men and women differ in the extent to which others may
affect them (Lundeberg, Fox, & Punćcohaŕ, 1994; Venkatesh & Morris,
2000; Venkatesh et al., 2012). For example, the subjective norm is re-
ported to affect women’s behavioral intentions to use a system more
strongly than it will for men (Venkatesh & Morris, 2000). Consistent
with this norm, we expect that the influence of social presence on SNS
users’ attitudes toward information sharing will be more important for
women than for men. Therefore, our first hypothesis is:
H1. Social presence will be more important in the formation of
attitudes toward information sharing for women than men.
3.3. Effect of privacy risk on attitudes across genders
Privacy risk refers to one’s interests and abilities in controlling the
handling of data about oneself (Bélanger & Crossler, 2011; Clark,
Beebe, Williams, & Shepherd, 2009). IS researchers have confirmed the
negative influence of the information privacy risk on people’s attitudes,
including their willingness to conduct online transactions (Van Slyke,
Shim, Johnson, & Jiang, 2006) and to share personal information
(Bélanger & Crossler, 2011; Dinev & Hart, 2006; Liu, Wang, & Liu,
2018). In addition, concern for information privacy could also posi-
tively affect online consumers’ perceived uncertainty, which in turn
negatively affects their decisions to purchase (Pavlou, Liang, & Xue,
2007). In today’s information age, users’ perceptions of an information
privacy risk are critical to their decisions regarding information-sharing
behavior on blogs (Chai et al., 2011). According to Osatuyi (2015),
users’ privacy risk on SNSs can come from various sources. First, users
are concerned that their personal information may be collected by SNSs
for future business analysis. Second, it is possible that users’ personal
X. Lin and X. Wang
information may be accessed and used for secondary purposes without
their permission. When users perceive that their privacy is threatened
by personal information collection, unauthorized access, and/or sec-
ondary use, they are less likely to share information on SNSs (Osatuyi,
2015).
Prior research indicates that men and women differ in their per-
ceptions of risk (Gustafsod, 1998) as well as their risk-taking behavior
(Dwyer, Gilkeson, & List, 2002; Powell & Ansic, 1997). Generally,
women are believed to have consistently higher levels of concern about
risk and men are more willing to take risks (Davidson & Freudenburg,
1996; Dwyer et al., 2002). For example, Dwyer et al. (2002) reported
that, in a national study of mutual fund investors, women exhibited less
risk taking than men in their investment decisions. In addition,
Garbarino and Strahilevitz (2004) found that women perceive a sig-
nificantly higher level of risk and a higher level of negative outcomes in
online shopping. In IS research, women show higher levels of privacy
concerns (Chai et al., 2011), and gender differences are also confirmed
to influence the perceived risks in online consumer decision-making
(Featherman & Brooks, 2013) and technology adoption (Lin et al.,
2013). Therefore, we hypothesize:
H2. Privacy risk will be more important in the formation of attitudes
toward information sharing for women than for men.
3.4. Effect of social ties on attitude across gender
In the context of SNS, we posit that social ties represent a partici-
pant’s perceived strength of social relationship with other members
within a particular SNS. Increased levels of social interaction aid in
users’ knowing each other better, which increases the likelihood that
they will share their important information and knowledge. Social ties
have also been shown to have a positive influence on users’ informa-
tion/knowledge-sharing behavior in regard to SNS tools (Chiu et al.,
2006). Consistently, social ties have been an important factor that will
affect SNS users’ information sharing.
In the context of SNSs, the SRT suggests that women will focus on
social characteristics and interpersonal affordances during online ac-
tivities. Women will be more people oriented, whereas men will be
somewhat more independent and view SNSs as a task-oriented en-
vironment (Eagly & Wood, 1991). Women are believed to be more
concerned about their relationships with and care for other community
members than men (Benenson, 1990; Chai et al., 2011). Therefore, we
contend that women will be more likely to consider their social ties
with other community members when sharing their information online.
H3. Social ties will be more important in the formation of attitudes
toward information sharing for women compared to men.
3.5. Effect of commitment on attitudes across genders
Commitment refers to the relative strength of an individual’s iden-
tification with and involvement in a SNS (Mowday, Steers, & Porter,
1979). Commitment is shown to be positively related to people’s be-
havior, such as employee turnover (Ahuja, Chudoba, Kacmar,
McKnight, & George, 2007) and knowledge sharing (van den Hooff &
De Ridder, 2004) in an organization.
SNS users will be more committed to the community when they
interact with other community members. Female SNS users will feel
more committed to that SNS community due to interpersonal connec-
tions. In addition, commitment is believed to be related to a social-
oriented manner rather than a task-oriented manner (Eagly & Wood,
1991). These findings lead to our justification that commitment will
more likely be a focus for women, which will influence users’ in-
formation-sharing behavior more strongly for females than for males.
H4. Commitment will be more important in the formation of attitudes
49
International Journal of Information Management 50 (2020) 45–56
toward information sharing for women than for men.
3.6. Effect of attitudes on intention across genders
Generally, an individual’s attitude toward information sharing is
associated with that individual’s intention to share information on SNSs
(Ajzen & Fishbein, 1977; Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Attitude has been
found to have a positive influence on behavior intention decisions in
various domains, including blogs (Hsu & Lin, 2008), IT career choices
(Joshi & Kuhn, 2011), and electronic government services (Dwivedi,
Rana, Janssen et al., 2017; Rana, Dwivedi, Lal, Williams, & Clement,
2017; Rana, Dwivedi, Williams, & Weerakkody, 2016). Dwivedi, Rana,
Jeyaraj, Clement, and Williams (2017)) also confirm the positive effect
of attitude on intention using a combination of meta-analysis and
structural equation modelling techniques.
Prior studies have reported significant gender differences regarding
the effects of attitude on behavior intention in IS disciplines, such as
consumer online purchasing behavior (Van Slyke, Comunale, &
Belanger, 2002; Wolin & Korgaonkar, 2003). In a recent study, attitude
has been found to influence consumers’ online purchasing intentions
more strongly for men than for women (Featherman & Brooks, 2013).
This finding is based on the assumption that e-commerce is a task-or-
iented environment. Thus, attitude is a more salient predictor of pur-
chase decisions for men due to their task-oriented nature (Eagly &
Wood, 1991; Venkatesh & Morris, 2000). However, we believe that
SNSs are more likely to be social- and people-oriented environments,
where people collaborate with each other for social support (Eagly &
Wood, 1991; Liang et al., 2011). The different roles in SNS communities
suggest that men are more likely to be competitive and women, co-
operative (Deaux & Kite, 1987; Tannen, 2001). Female SNS users are
more likely to provide and receive social support from other members
in the communities. Moreover, Lin et al. (2012) suggested that the ef-
fect of gender could be different and should be carefully considered in
different contexts. Therefore, our next hypothesis is:
H5. The positive relationship between attitudes toward information
sharing and intention will be stronger for women than for men.
3.7. Effect of subjective norms on intention across genders
Subjective norm is defined as the degree to which individuals be-
lieve that most people who are important to them think they should or
should not perform the behavior in question (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975).
In the TRA model, subjective norm is a direct determinant of behavioral
intention according to the rationale that an individual may choose to
engage in a behavior to comply with people who are important to that
individual. Thus, it is useful to study gender differences in subjective
norms by understanding differences in the degree to which women and
men can be influenced by other important referents (Venkatesh &
Morris, 2000).
The SRT suggests that women are more attentive to social cues,
whereas men are more attentive to other stimuli, such as goals and
objects. Prior research has confirmed that women and men are different
in the extent to which they can be influenced by others and that women
(when compared to men) tend to be more compliant with others’ wishes
(Eagly & Carli, 1981) These findings suggest that women may weigh
other people’s opinions when making decisions about information
sharing on SNSs more than men do. Therefore, we hypothesize that:
H6. The positive relationship between subjective norms and intention
will be stronger for women than for men.
3.8. Control variables
Following the previous research, we control for several variables
X. Lin and X. Wang
that potentially influence the attitude and intention to share informa-
tion on SNSs. First, we control for age (Culnan, 1995) and SNS ex-
periences (Smith, Milberg, & Burke, 1996). Second, we control for
computer experience because users with more computer experience
may feel more comfortable using various features of SNSs to share in-
formation.
4. Research method
4.1. Data collection
We conducted an online survey at a large university in the United
States. Participants (college students) were asked questions about their
perceptions of overall SNS usage and information-sharing intentions,
and they received nominal course credit for participating in this study.
Course bonus points have been shown to be an effective incentive to
increase research participation rates (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). Never-
theless, incentives may influence the results of the survey (Gritz, 2004).
First, they might affect participants’ moods, leading to mood-congruent
or mood-incongruent responses. Second, participants may fill in useless
answers to get the inventive. Regarding the first issue, our study does
not include mood- or emotion-related questions. Therefore, the mood
raised by the incentive is unlikely to influence our results. Concerning
the second issue, we have added quality assurance questions to the
survey. Those participants who did not answer these questions correctly
will be excluded from our analysis. According to recent reports,1,2 88%
of Americans between 18- and 29-years old use SNSs (higher than other
age groups), and 79% of college graduates in the United States use SNSs
(higher than other education groups). Further, 40 million students and
recent college graduates were on LinkedIn by 2018 (Hatch, 2018).
Therefore, SNSs are quite popular among college students, making it
appropriate to use college students as participants to examine in-
formation sharing on SNSs.
Data collection occurred in the laboratory. After the participants
arrived, one of us introduced the purpose of the study. Then, the par-
ticipants accessed the link to complete the survey. When they were
finished, the participants were thanked and left the laboratory.
4.2. Measurement
The measures used were adapted from prior studies, with each item
measured on a 7-point Likert scale anchored by “strongly disagree/
agree.” The measurement items and their sources and psychometric
properties are shown in Table 1. A pilot study (N = 90) was performed
to validate the instrument. The pilot study’s results indicated that the
measurement variables exhibited measurement validity.
4.3. Analysis and results
Because all the variables were collected in one survey, common
method bias (CMB) was assessed (Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Lee, &
Podsakoff, 2003). First, the Harmon one-factor analysis (Harman, 1976)
showed that six factors were present and that the most variance ex-
plained by one factor was 34.61%. Second, following (Podsakoff et al.,
2003), a common method factor, including all the indicators, was in-
cluded in the partial least squares (PLS), and we calculated the var-
iances of indicators explained by the principal factor and the method.
Our results showed that the average substantively explained variance of
the indicator was 0.79, whereas the average method–based variance
was 0.006. The ratio of substantive variance to method variance was
1
https://www.statista.com/statistics/471370/us-adults-who-use-social-
networks-age/
2 t=
https://www.statista.com/statistics/471386/us-adults-who-use-social-
networks-education/
50
International Journal of Information Management 50 (2020) 45–56
around 132:1. In addition, most method factor loadings were not sig-
nificant. Therefore, CMB was unlikely to be a serious concern in our
study.
PLS was used to assess the measurement model (i.e., to evaluate
construct validation and reliability) and test the structural model. We
used SmartPLS 2.0 to perform both tests (Ringle, Wende, & Will, 2005).
We used PLS in our study for two reasons. First, the focus of the study
was to examine individuals’ intentions to share information. Because
PLS maximizes the explained variance of the endogenous constructs, it
is appropriate for this study (Hair, Sarstedt, Ringle, & Mena, 2012).
Second, our measurements were not normally distributed (i.e., the
Shapiro-Wilk tests were significant). According to Hair, Hult, Ringle,
and Sarstedt (2016), PLS is more appropriate with non-normally dis-
tributed data.
4.4. Participants’ demographic information
We received 405 valid responses, 232 (57.3%) male and 173
(42.7%) female. All the participants were currently SNS users and ac-
tive in sharing their information on at least one of the popular SNSs.
More than half of the participants (62%) are currently active in sharing
information on two or more SNSs, such as Facebook, Twitter, and
LinkedIn. On average, they have 11.5 years of experience using com-
puters and 5 years of experience using SNSs.
4.5. Measurement model testing
The strength of the measurement model can be demonstrated by
convergent and discriminant validity tests of the constructs (Hair,
Black, Babin, Anderson, & Anderson, 2018). Factor loading, composite
reliability (CR), and average variance extracted (AVE) were used to test
the convergent validity. We used established criteria to test the relia-
bility and validity of the measurement instrument. Factor loading
should be above 0.6 (Hair et al., 2018), CR should be above 0.7 (Hair
et al., 2018), and AVE should be above 0.5 (Fornell & Larcker, 1981).
Table 1 shows that all the factor loadings are higher than 0.7, which is
above 0.6. In addition, cross loadings for measurement indicators are
presented in Appendix A.
AVE, CR, the root of AVE, and correlations among each construct
are reported in Table 2. The AVE for each construct is above 0.5, which
indicates that the latent factors can explain at least 50% of the mea-
sured variance. All the CRs are higher than 0.85, which is greater than
the critical value of 0.7. To satisfy the discriminant validity, the square
root of AVE should be greater than the inter-scale correlation. The
elements along the diagonal are much greater than the off-diagonal
elements. The analyses confirmed convergent validity and reliability of
the measurement model. Discriminant validity is also satisfied.
4.6. Structural model testing
PLS was used to analyze the structural model. To statistically test
gender difference on each relationship in this study, we used multi-
group PLS (Qureshi & Compeau, 2009). Prior studies indicated that
multi-group PLS is a valid technique for testing subgroup differences
(Keil et al., 2000; Lin et al., 2013). First, the structural model was tested
separately for male and female groups. Then, the path coefficients of
the two groups were compared by calculating the differences using the
formula provided by Keil et al. (2000) as follows. Further, Table 3
shows the results of all comparison hypotheses across genders.
N1 − 1 N2 − 1
Spooled = × SE12 + × SE22
N1 + N2 − 2 N1 + N2 − 2
PC1 − PC2
Spooled ×
1
+
1
N1 N2
X. Lin and X. Wang International Journal of Information Management 50 (2020) 45–56

Table 1
Constructs, items with factor loadings, and sources.
Constructs Loading Source

Social presence
(Cronbach’s alpha = 0.83)
Privacy risk
(Cronbach’s alpha = 0.94)
Commitment
(Cronbach’s alpha = 0.93)
Social ties
(Cronbach’s alpha = 0.85)
Attitude
(Cronbach’s alpha = 0.94)
Subjective norms
(Cronbach’s alpha = 0.88)
Intention to share information
(Cronbach’s alpha = 0.87)
Note: uses 7-point semantic differential scale 0.79 (Short et al., 1976)
SPRE1. Impersonal – Personal 0.84
SPRE2. Insensitive – Sensitive 0.86
SPRE3. Cold – Warm 0.74
SPRE4. Passive – Active
PR1. I am concerned that the SNS is collecting too much personal 0.93 (Pavlou et al., 2007; Yin, Cheng, & Zhu, 2011)
information about me. 0.95
PR2. I am concerned about the privacy of the personal information that the 0.89
SNS captures about me. 0.91
PR3. I suspect that my privacy is not well protected by the SNS.
PR4. I’m worried that unknown third parties will access my personal
information on the SNS.
CMT1. I am proud to belong to the membership of the SNS. 0.93 (Garbarino & Johnson, 1999; Liang et al., 2011)
CMT2. I feel a sense of belonging to the SNS. 0.94
CMT3. I care about the long-term success of the SNS. 0.93
STIE1. I maintain close social relationships with others on the SNS. 0.85 (Chai et al., 2011; Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998; Tsai &
STIE2. I spend a lot of time interacting with others on the SNS. 0.87 Ghoshal, 1998)
STIE3. I know some other people on the SNS on a personal level. 0.70
STIE4. I have frequent communication with others on my SNS. 0.90
Note: this construct uses a 7-point semantic differential scale 0.93 (Fishbein, 1963)
ATT1. Sharing information is a (bad/good) idea. 0.91
ATT2. Sharing information is a (foolish/wise) idea. 0.90
ATT3. Sharing information is (unpleasant/pleasant). 0.92
ATT4. I (dislike/like) the idea of sharing information.
SN1. My close friends would think that I should share information on the 0.91 (Taylor & Todd, 1995)
SNS. 0.88
SN2. My family would think that I should share information on the SNS. 0.91
SN3. My significant other would think that I should share information on the
SNS.
BI1. I intend to continue sharing information on SNS in the future. 0.86 (Venkatesh et al., 2012)
BI2. I plan to continue sharing information on SNS frequently. 0.94
BI3. I will always try to share information on SNS in my daily life. 0.86

Table 2
Correlation matrix with CR and AVE.
Constructs AVE CR Correlations

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1. Attitude 0.84 0.95 0.92

2. Information-sharing intention 0.79 0.92 0.40 0.89
3. Social presence 0.66 0.88 0.42 0.45 0.81
4. Privacy risk 0.84 0.96 −0.26 −0.11 −0.04 0.92
5. Social ties 0.69 0.90 0.33 0.63 0.42 −0.04 0.83
6. Subjective norms 0.81 0.93 0.33 0.48 0.21 0.03 0.34 0.90
7. Commitment 0.87 0.95 0.40 0.61 0.40 −0.06 0.58 0.45 0.93

Note: The square root of AVE is shown in bold as the diagonal.

Table 3
Standardized comparisons of paths between female and male groups.
Hypothesis Constructs Women Men Standardized Support?
(n = 173) (n = 232) comparisons
of paths
Standardized t-value Standardized t-value
path coefficient path
coefficient

H1 Social presence → Attitude 0.30 3.69 0.31 3.73 −1.24 (ns) NO

H2 Privacy risk → Attitude −0.27 4.23 −0.20 3.40 −10.81*** YES
H3 Social ties → Attitude 0.13 1.79 0.01 0.12 15.74*** YES
H4 Commitment → Attitude 0.24 2.72 0.20 2.60 4.72*** YES
H5 Attitude → Intention 0.39 5.88 0.16 2.15 30.17*** YES
H6 Subjective norms → Intention 0.39 5.73 0.38 5.23 1.42 (ns) NO

* 0.05 significance; ** 0.01 significance; *** 0.001 significance; NS = statistically not significant.

51
X. Lin and X. Wang
WhereSpooled=pooled estimator for the variance
t=t-statistic with N1 + N2 – 2 ° of freedom
SEi=standard error of path in structural model of gender i
PCi=path coefficient in structural model of gender i
The research results indicate that gender differences exist in our
study. Especially, the R2 shows that the research model accounts for
38.6% of the variance in attitude toward information sharing and
42.5% of the variance in intention to share information for the female
subgroup. In contrast, for the male subgroup, the model explains 25.1%
of the variance in attitude toward information sharing and 20.8% of the
variance in intention-to-share information. The large differences be-
tween the R2 of attitude and intention confirm that gender is an im-
portant moderator in this study.
For women, social presence (ß = 0.30, p < .001), privacy risk (ß
= -0.27, p < .001), and commitment (ß = 0.24, p < .01) have sig-
nificant effects on attitude toward sharing information. However, the
effect of social ties (ß = 0.13, p > .05) is not significant. Further, both
attitude (ß = 0.39, p < .001) and subjective norms (ß = 0.39, p <
.001) positively affect intention to share information. For men, social
presence (ß = 0.31, p < .001), privacy risk (ß = -0.20, p < .001),
and commitment (ß = 0.20, p < .01) have significant effects on atti-
tude toward sharing information. However, the effect of social ties
(ß = 0.01, p > .05) is not significant. Further, both attitude (ß = 0.16,
p < .05) and subjective norms (ß = 0.38, p < .001) positively affect
intention to share information.
Further, privacy risk, social ties, and commitment are more sig-
nificantly important for women than for men (H2, H3, and H4 sup-
ported). Attitude toward information sharing affects people’s intention
to share information more strongly for women than it does for men (H5
supported). However, H1 and H6 are not supported. There are no sig-
nificant gender differences in the effect of social presence on attitude
and the effect of subjective norm on intention to share.
In addition, after controlling for age, computer experience, and SNS
experiences, the research results of hypotheses testing remained un-
changed. None of these control variables significantly influence peo-
ple’s attitudes toward information sharing for both the female and male
groups. Moreover, none of them influence people’s intention to share
information for the female group. However, age (ß = -0.18, p < 0.01)
and SNS experiences (ß = 0.15, p < 0.001) significantly affect the
intention to share information among males. Specifically, males who
have more experience using SNSs are more likely to share information,
whereas older males are less likely to share information on SNSs.
5. Discussion
The purpose of this study is to provide a detailed analysis of the
moderating role of gender on the formation of individuals’ attitudes
toward information sharing and their decision-making about sharing
information on SNSs. Specifically, we have examined the following two
questions: 1) Do genders perceive different levels of importance on SNS
environmental constructs in the formation of their attitudes toward
sharing information? 2) Does gender moderate the effects of in-
dividuals’ psychological perceptions on their information-sharing de-
cisions?
Grounded in the TRA and SRT, we theoretically explain and em-
pirically examine the moderating role of gender on individuals’ in-
formation-sharing decisions on SNSs. The results of this study provide
strong support for our hypotheses and indicate that gender differences
exist in information sharing on SNSs. The proposed comparative model
contributes to the existing literature by revealing the significant dif-
ferences in how various tested variables are weighted in the formation
of individuals’ attitudes and how they affect the intention to share in-
formation. First, although social presence has significant effects on at-
titudes toward information sharing for both women and men, there are
no significant differences across genders. Our results imply that women
and men place similar importance on social presence and they both
52
International Journal of Information Management 50 (2020) 45–56
want to be connected to others on SNSs (Tang, Wang, & Norman, 2013)
probably due to the fact that social presence is one primary design
feature that drives people to engage in SNSs (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010).
Second, according to the SRT, women tend to act in social- and people-
oriented environments and focus more on interpersonal connections.
Consistent with the SRT, our results show that women emphasize social
ties and commitment more than men on SNSs. Third, our study also
shows that females place a significantly greater importance on privacy
risk in the formation of attitudes toward information sharing compared
to males. According to the SRT, men are more assertive. Therefore, they
may care less about privacy risk when they engage in information
sharing. This is consistent with the finding of Lin, Featherman, and
Sarker (2017)) that privacy risk has a stronger negative influence on
satisfaction with SNSs for females than for males. Lastly, attitude has a
more significant influence on female’s intention to share information
than male’s intention. However, there are no significant differences
regarding the effect of subjective norms across genders, which is not
consistent with the SRT. One possibility is that men, though more in-
dependent, are also under pressure from their social circles to share
information. Further, Venkatesh and Morris (2000) reported that sub-
jective norms influence behavioral intention to use technology more
strongly for women than for men within organizations. Our results in-
dicate that the impact of subjective norms on people’s behavioral in-
tention can change as technology advances. In particular, SNSs attract a
huge number of users due to their new media features. As such, sub-
jective norms are likely to have equal impacts on behavioral intention
across genders. Future studies are needed to further explore the re-
lationship between subjective norms and intention across genders in
different research contexts. Overall, the research results provide further
support of the importance of gender in IS research. We conclude our
contributions to both theory and practice as follows.
5.1. Theoretical contribution
Prior studies have mainly focused on social capital theory and social
cognitive theory to study information-sharing behavior online (e.g.
Chai et al., 2011; Hsu et al., 2007). This study contributes to the ex-
isting information-sharing literature by integrating SNS constructs into
the TRA to explore individual psychological perceptions and decision-
making about information sharing. This theoretically grounded re-
search also underscores the importance of individuals’ attitudes and
social beliefs in the use of new technologies, in particular, SNSs. As
such, our study takes a first step to posit and explain information-
sharing behavior on SNSs using the TRA. The TRA is a well-developed
and widely used theoretical model, but it has not yet been extensively
applied to examine users’ information-sharing behavior on SNSs. The
results confirm that the TRA could be used to predict users’ informa-
tion-sharing behavior for each gender group. We argue that the TRA is
useful for developing a specific model for information-sharing behavior,
especially in the new context of SNSs. Therefore, our work contributes
to technology usage and IS literature by developing an SNS-specific
information-sharing model.
Further, this study advances the understanding of information
sharing on SNSs by providing a detailed analysis of gender differences
in information-sharing behavior on SNSs. Thus, it can enhance our
understanding of the differences in how men and women perceive the
importance of tested variables in the formation of their attitudes toward
information sharing and their intention to share. By highlighting such
gender differences, the study demonstrates the value of devoting spe-
cific research attention to the needs of gender in the use of IT. The
findings could become very valuable because they help to advance
gender differences research by extending it to online users’ information-
sharing behavior on SNSs. Further, insights can be obtained from se-
parately examining the research models for female and male groups
(Figs. 2 and 3, respectively). Our research results show that the models
offer very different explanatory power for the female group and male
X. Lin and X. Wang
Fig. 2. a. Research results for the female sample. b. Research results for the male sample.
group in attitudes toward information sharing (38.6% and 25.1%, re-
spectively) and their intention to share information (42.5% and 20.8%,
respectively). A separate examination of the models shows that the
antecedents have different relative significance for males and females in
the formation of attitudes and their intention to share.
For females, attitudes toward sharing information and subjective
norms seem to have an equally important effect on their intention to
share information on SNSs. In the formation of attitudes toward sharing
information, social presence is given the highest level of importance,
followed by privacy risk and then commitment. For males, subjective
norms seem to have a clearly stronger effect than attitude toward in-
formation sharing and their intention to share. This means that, when
males want to share information on SNSs, they are more concerned
about other people’s opinions. In the formation of attitudes toward
information sharing, social presence is given the highest importance,
followed equally by privacy risk and commitment. Therefore, although
previous studies have demonstrated the importance of these factors in
individuals’ information sharing (e.g. Acquisti & Gross, 2006; Chai
et al., 2011; Dwyer, Hiltz, & Passerini, 2007; Lu & Hsiao, 2010), this
study offers an enhanced understanding of the effects of these variables
by explicating their different levels of significance for females and
males.
Lastly, this study uncovers gender differences in users’ online
sharing decisions on SNSs. We explain and analyze gender differences
in SNS-based decision-making, which shows that females and males use
different sets of attributes or different weights of the same set of attri-
butes in their sharing decisions on SNSs. These results imply that
gender effects should be considered and explicitly explained in online
users’ decision-making. Broad gender differences have been found in
users’ decision-making (Chakraborty, Vishik, & Rao, 2013; Djamasbi &
53
International Journal of Information Management 50 (2020) 45–56
Loiacono, 2008). However, few studies have systematically examined
such gender differences or provided a detailed analysis of the reasons
gender differences occur in people’s actions. Therefore, our study can
fill this research gap. Our study is distinguished from prior studies by
exploring and theoretically explaining why gender differences exist in
people’s information-sharing behavior on SNSs, rather than simply by
exploring its role as a moderating effect and pointing out the differences
in empirical results. In particular, our work suggests that the SRT could
serve as an appropriate mechanism for theorizing and incorporating
gender into the study of people’s specific behaviors, which is consistent
with some prior studies (e.g., Chai et al., 2011; Lin, Zhang, & Li, 2016).
As such, it can enrich the literature by providing further insights into
gender theorizing and fill the needs of gender study (Lin et al., 2012;
Trauth, 2013). Additionally, our study suggests that gender differences
in social behaviors can transfer from the offline world to the online
world, indicating that the boundary of users’ offline and online beha-
vior has become blurred in today’s social media era. Given the in-
creasing importance of gender as a fundamental variable to assist in the
implementation of SNSs for business practices (Krasnova et al., 2017),
our detailed analysis of gender differences is valuable for researchers
who want to incorporate gender into a variety of research contexts.
Therefore, our study contributes to advancing the gender difference
literature to an important research domain—that is, information-
sharing behavior—and providing further insights into how to study the
role of gender in IS.
5.2. Practical contributions
These results have important implications for practitioners. Prior
studies have shown that companies can gain business value by
X. Lin and X. Wang International Journal of Information Management 50 (2020) 45–56

encouraging their stakeholders to share information. It is the end users’ posted information (and by whom) so that women can better under-
sharing behavior that provides firms and organizations opportunities to stand how their information has been distributed.
achieve competitive capabilities, such as employees’ innovativeness
(Gray, Parise, & Iyer, 2011). For example, online consumers’ sharing
5.3. Limitations and suggestions for future research
behavior has enhanced businesses’ market strategies and sale perfor-
mance (Liang et al., 2011). Our study provides a deeper understanding
First, this study employed college students as the research sample.
of people’s decision-making processes about sharing on SNSs. A firm
Although college students could represent a large partial segment of
may be able to create a competitive advantage by efficiently motivating
SNS users, future research might generalize our research findings to
its customers, employees, and partners to share information on SNSs.
other SNS-user populations in other environments (e.g., the workplace).
Gender has been found to be a significant factor that affects people’s
Second, this study used SNSs as the sole investigation context. An SNS’s
information sharing. Gender difference findings provide important in-
platform-specific factors may affect the study of users’ information-
formation to purveyors of SNSs and businesses engaged in SNSs. The
sharing decisions on SNSs. Future research that employs a cross-plat-
gender differences reported here could aid designers of SNSs. SNS firms
form survey would be useful to validate the proposed comprehensive
could develop and implement more people-friendly design features.
model of information sharing and generalize the findings to other
Businesses could more effectively collect information from their sta-
contexts. Third, this study explores a limited set of antecedents of SNS
keholders, depending on the gender of their audience. Our results will
users’ information-sharing decision-making. Future research might en-
provide more effective strategies for those firms that produce gender-
rich the model by incorporating more antecedents, based on the re-
oriented products and want to improve their market performance. By
levant literature and theoretical perspectives. Lastly, this study focuses
learning how men and women share information differently on SNSs,
on users’ general information sharing. Future research that looks at
developers will be able to encourage individuals to share information
specific information, such as product information and personal in-
more effectively and efficiently. Our study shows that women place
formation, would definitely be interesting.
more emphasis on social ties and commitment in the formation of their
Recently, Osatuyi (2015) developed a second-order measurement of
attitudes compared to men. Therefore, developers should support wo-
privacy concerns that includes collection, unauthorized access, errors,
men’s social interactions on SNSs so they can develop stronger social
and secondary use. Because our study does not focus on providing a
ties and have a greater commitment to SNSs. For example, developers
comprehensive understanding of privacy risk on SNSs, we did not select
could highlight recent updates from their close friends and keep women
items from this Osatuyi study, and we admit that this is another lim-
informed. Developers could also add various features that support
itation of our study. Future studies can draw upon Osatuyi (2015)
women’s social interactions, such as an update reminder setup and e-
measurements and examine whether women and men perceive di-
cards (e.g., birthdays, New Year’s Day). Our findings could thus assist e-
mensions of privacy risk differently.
vendors to design more focused strategies to manage their customers’
perceptions to gain more feedback from them.
Privacy is another important concern in terms of user behavior on 6. Conclusion
SNSs. Our research confirms the strong negative relationship between
privacy risk and people’s attitudes in both female and male groups. The purpose of this study is to delineate and examine gender dif-
Methods designed to protect users’ information need to be published ferences in users’ decisions about information-sharing behavior on
and enforced to promote information sharing on SNSs. Although both SNSs. We developed a comparative theoretical model of information
SNS providers and businesses want to aggregate and monetize social sharing across genders. Our results support our argument that gender
commerce, they need to respect the privacy of consumers’ individual strongly moderates the effects of privacy risk, social ties, and commit-
information. Because our results show that privacy risk has a stronger ment in the formation of users’ attitudes toward information sharing as
effect on women, developers need to pay particular attention to wo- well as the effect of attitude on their intention to share information. Our
men’s privacy on SNSs. For example, developers could allow women to findings provide evidence of the predictive moderating power of gender
classify their contacts into different groups. Women could then specify in users’ sharing decisions on SNSs and offer firms and organizations
which groups are permitted to view certain information. Developers insights into garnering information and feedback from their customers,
could also add information such as how many people have viewed the employees, and partners.

Appendix A. Cross Loadings for Measurement Indicators

ATT COMMIT INTENT PRISK SN SPRE STIE

ATT1 0.93 0.38 0.36 −0.22 0.32 0.40 0.30

ATT2 0.91 0.37 0.34 −0.23 0.29 0.36 0.26
ATT3 0.90 0.32 0.34 −0.24 0.28 0.39 0.31
ATT4 0.92 0.38 0.40 −0.26 0.32 0.40 0.35
COMMIT1 0.36 0.93 0.63 −0.09 0.4 0.37 0.55
COMMIT2 0.36 0.94 0.65 −0.01 0.46 0.38 0.56
COMMIT3 0.39 0.93 0.61 −0.06 0.41 0.37 0.53
INTENT1 0.35 0.55 0.86 −0.05 0.37 0.41 0.58
INTENT2 0.37 0.61 0.94 −0.12 0.42 0.42 0.60
INTENT3 0.34 0.63 0.86 −0.12 0.49 0.36 0.50
PRISK1 −0.23 −0.04 −0.1 0.93 0.01 −0.01 −0.02
PRISK2 −0.24 −0.07 −0.11 0.95 0.02 −0.03 −0.04
PRISK3 −0.25 −0.09 −0.13 0.89 0.04 −0.07 −0.07
PRISK4 −0.23 0.00 −0.07 0.91 0.03 −0.02 −0.02
SN1 0.31 0.40 0.47 0.09 0.91 0.24 0.36
SN2 0.27 0.39 0.39 −0.01 0.88 0.14 0.26
SN3 0.30 0.43 0.44 −0.01 0.91 0.18 0.30
SPRE1 0.31 0.33 0.40 0.00 0.17 0.79 0.43
SPRE2 0.37 0.30 0.34 −0.05 0.20 0.84 0.32
SPRE3 0.41 0.36 0.37 −0.08 0.18 0.86 0.33

54
X. Lin and X. Wang
SPRE4 0.26 0.32 0.34
STIE1 0.26 0.53 0.53
STIE2 0.33 0.61 0.63
STIE3 0.21 0.25 0.32
STIE4 0.29 0.50 0.55
Notes: Boldface values indicate factor loadings. ATT = Attitude toward sharing information; COMMIT = Commitment; INTENT = Intention to
share information; PRISK = Privacy risk; SN = Subjective norms; SPRE = Social presence; STIE = Social ties.
References
Acquisti, A., & Gross, R. (2006). Imagined communities: Awareness, information sharing, and
privacy on the facebook. Paper Presented at the Privacy Enhancing Technologies.
Adam, A. (2002). Exploring the gender question in critical information systems. Journal of
Information Technology, 17(2), 59–67. https://doi.org/10.1080/
02683960210145959.
Adya, M. P. (2008). Women at work: Differences in IT career experiences and perceptions
between South Asian and American women. Human Resource Management, 47(3),
601–635.
Ahuja, M. K., & Thatcher, J. B. (2005). Moving beyond intentions and toward the theory
of trying: Effects of work environment and gender on post-adoption information
technology use. MIS Quarterly, 29(3), 427–459.
Ahuja, M. K., Chudoba, K. M., Kacmar, C. J., McKnight, D. H., & George, J. F. (2007). IT
road warriors: Balancing work-family conflict, job autonomy, and work overload to
mitigate turnover intentions. MIS Quarterly, 31(1), 1–17.
Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1977). Attitude-behavior relations: A theoretical analysis and
review of empirical research. Psychological Bulletin, 84(5), 888.
Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behaviour.
Alalwan, A. A., Rana, N. P., Dwivedi, Y. K., & Algharabat, R. (2017). Social media in
marketing: A review and analysis of the existing literature. Telematics and Informatics,
34(7), 1177–1190.
Archer, J. (1996). Sex differences in social behavior: are the social role and evolutionary
explanations compatible? The American Psychologist, 51(9), 909.
Aula, P. (2010). Social media, reputation risk and ambient publicity management.
Strategy and Leadership, 38(6), 43–49.
Bélanger, F., & Crossler, R. E. (2011). Privacy in the digital age: A review of information
privacy research in information systems. MIS Quarterly, 35(4), 1017–1042.
Benenson, J. F. (1990). Gender differences in social networks. The Journal of Early
Adolescence, 10(4), 472–495.
Bond, B. J. (2009). He posted, she posted: Gender differences in self-disclosure on social
network sites. Rocky Mountain Communication Review, 6(2).
Bowden, J. (2014). Retrieved from http://socialmediatoday.com/jayson-bowden/
2066591/reasons-explore-big-data-social-media-analytics.
Boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scho-
larship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210–230.
Campbell, D. E., Wright, R. T., & Clay, P. F. (2010). Deconstructing and operationalizing
interactivity: An online advertising perspective. Journal of Information Technology
Theory and Application, 14(4), 29–53.
Chai, S., Das, S., & Rao, H. R. (2011). Factors affecting bloggers’ knowledge sharing: An
investigation across gender. Journal of Management Information Systems, 28(3),
309–342.
Chakraborty, R., Vishik, C., & Rao, H. R. (2013). Privacy preserving actions of older adults
on social media: Exploring the behavior of opting out of information sharing. Decision
Support Systems, 55(4), 948–956.
Chiu, C.-M., Hsu, M.-H., & Wang, E. T. (2006). Understanding knowledge sharing in
virtual communities: An integration of social capital and social cognitive theories.
Decision Support Systems, 42(3), 1872–1888.
Clark, J., Beebe, N. L., Williams, K., & Shepherd, L. (2009). Security and privacy gov-
ernance: Criteria for systems design. Journal of Information Privacy and Security, 5,
3–30.
Constant, D., Kiesler, S., & Sproull, L. (1994). What’s mine is ours, or is it? A study of
attitudes about information sharing. Information Systems Research, 5(4), 400–421.
Culnan, M. J. (1995). Consumer awareness of name removal procedures: Implications for
direct marketing. Journal of Direct Marketing, 9(2), 10–19.
Davidson, D. J., & Freudenburg, W. R. (1996). Gender and environmental risk concerns a
review and analysis of available research. Environment and Behavior, 28(3), 302–339.
Deaux, K., & Kite, M. E. (1987). Thinking about gender.
Dinev, T., & Hart, P. (2006). An extended privacy calculus model for e-commerce
transactions. Information Systems Research, 17(1), 61–80.
Djamasbi, S., & Loiacono, E. T. (2008). Do men and women use feedback provided by
their Decision Support Systems (DSS) differently? Decision Support Systems, 44(4),
854–869.
Dwivedi, Y. K., Kapoor, K. K., & Chen, H. (2015). Social media marketing and advertising.
The Marketing Review, 15(3), 289–309.
Dwivedi, Y. K., Rana, N. P., Janssen, M., Lal, B., Williams, M. D., & Clement, M. (2017).
An empirical validation of a unified model of electronic government adoption
(UMEGA). Government Information Quarterly, 34(2), 211–230.
Dwivedi, Y. K., Rana, N. P., Jeyaraj, A., Clement, M., & Williams, M. D. (2017). Re-
examining the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT): Towards
a revised theoretical model. Information Systems Frontiers, 1–16.
55
International Journal of Information Management 50 (2020) 45–56
0.03 0.13 0.74 0.32
−0.04 0.30 0.38 0.85
−0.12 0.33 0.38 0.87
0.07 0.18 0.26 0.70
−0.01 0.31 0.38 0.90
Dwyer, C., Hiltz, S. R., & Passerini, K. (2007). Trust and privacy concern within social
networking sites: A comparison of facebook and MySpace. Paper Presented at the AMCIS.
Dwyer, P. D., Gilkeson, J. H., & List, J. A. (2002). Gender differences in revealed risk
taking: Evidence from mutual fund investors. Economics Letters, 76(2), 151–158.
Eagly, A. H. (1987). Sex differences in social behavior: A social-role interpretation.
Eagly, A. H., & Carli, L. L. (1981). Sex of researchers and sex-typed communications as
determinants of sex differences in influenceability: A meta-analysis of social influence
studies. Psychological Bulletin, 90(1), 1.
Eagly, A. H., & Wood, W. (1991). Explaining sex differences in social behavior: A meta-
analytic perspective. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 17(3), 306–315.
Eagly, A. H., Wood, W., & Diekman, A. B. (2000). Social role theory of sex differences and
similarities: A current appraisal. The developmental social psychology of gender,
123–174.
Ellison, N. B., Vitak, J., Gray, R., & Lampe, C. (2014). Cultivating social resources on
social network sites: Facebook relationship maintenance behaviors and their role in
social capital processes. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 19(4),
855–870.
Featherman, M., & Brooks, S. L. (2013). Factors affecting online consumer’s behavior: An
investigation across gender.
Featherman, M. S., Miyazaki, A. D., & Sprott, D. E. (2010). Reducing online privacy risk to
facilitate e-service adoption: The influence of perceived ease of use and corporate
credibility. Journal of Services Marketing, 24(3), 219–229.
Fishbein, M. (1963). An investigation of the relationship between beliefs about an object
and the attitude toward that object. Human Relations.
Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (1975). Belief, attitude, intention and behavior: An introduction to
theory and research.
Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (2011). Predicting and changing behavior: The reasoned action
approach. New York, NY: Psychology Press.
Fornell, C., & Larcker, D. F. (1981). Evaluating structural equation models with un-
observable variables and measurement error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1),
39–50.
Garbarino, E., & Johnson, M. S. (1999). The different roles of satisfaction, trust, and
commitment in customer relationships. Journal of Marketing, 70–87.
Garbarino, E., & Strahilevitz, M. (2004). Gender differences in the perceived risk of
buying online and the effects of receiving a site recommendation. Journal of Business
Research, 57(7), 768–775.
Gopal, R., Marsden, J. R., & Vanthienen, J. (2011). Information mining—Reflections on
recent advancements and the road ahead in data, text, and media mining. Decision
Support Systems, 51(4), 727–731.
Gray, P. H., Parise, S., & Iyer, B. (2011). Innovation impacts of using social bookmarking
systems. MIS Quarterly, 35(3).
Gritz, A. S. (2004). The impact of material incentives on response quantity, response
quality, sample composition, survey outcome and cost in online access panels.
International Journal of Market Research, 46(3), 327–345.
Gustafsod, P. E. (1998). Gender Differences in risk perception: Theoretical and metho-
dological erspectives. Risk Analysis, 18(6), 805–811.
Hair, J. F., Sarstedt, M., Ringle, C. M., & Mena, J. A. (2012). An assessment of the use of
partial least squares structural equation modeling in marketing research. Journal of
the Academy of Marketing Science, 40(3), 414–433.
Hair, F., Jr, Black, W., Babin, B., Anderson, R., & Anderson, R. E. (2018). Multivariate data
analysis. Andover, UK: Cengage Learning EMEA.
Hair, J. F., Jr, Hult, G. T. M., Ringle, C., & Sarstedt, M. (2016). A primer on partial least
squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) (2nd ed.). Sage Publications.
Harman, H. H. (1976). Modern factor analysis. University of Chicago Press.
Hatch, C. (2018). Be in the know: 2018 social media statistics you should know. https://
www.disruptiveadvertising.com/social-media/be-in-the-know-2018-social-media-
statistics-you-should-know.
Hsu, C.-L., & Lin, J. C.-C. (2008). Acceptance of blog usage: The roles of technology
acceptance, social influence and knowledge sharing motivation. Information &
Management, 45(1), 65–74.
Hsu, M.-H., Ju, T. L., Yen, C.-H., & Chang, C.-M. (2007). Knowledge sharing behavior in
virtual communities: The relationship between trust, self-efficacy, and outcome ex-
pectations. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 65(2), 153–169.
Jarvenpaa, S. L., & Staples, D. S. (2000). The use of collaborative electronic media for
information sharing: An exploratory study of determinants. The Journal of Strategic
Information Systems, 9(2), 129–154.
Joinson, A. N. (2008). Looking at, looking up or keeping up with people?: Motives and use of
facebook. Paper Presented at the Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors
in Computing Systems.
Joshi, K., & Kuhn, K. (2011). What determines interest in an IS career? An application of
the theory of reasoned action. Communications of the Association for Information
Systems, 29(1), 8.
X. Lin and X. Wang
Kamboj, S., Sarmah, B., Gupta, S., & Dwivedi, Y. (2018). Examining branding co-creation
in brand communities on social media: Applying the paradigm of Stimulus-Organism-
Response. International Journal of Information Management, 39, 169–185.
Kaplan, A. M., & Haenlein, M. (2010). Users of the world, unite! The challenges and
opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons, 53(1), 59–68.
Kapoor, K. K., Tamilmani, K., Rana, N. P., Patil, P., Dwivedi, Y. K., & Nerur, S. J. I. S. F.
(2018). Advances in social media research: Past, present and future. 1–28.
Keil, M., Tan, B. C., Wei, K.-K., Saarinen, T., Tuunainen, V., & Wassenaar, A. (2000). A
cross-cultural study on escalation of commitment behavior in software projects.
Management Information Systems Quarterly, 24(2), 299–326.
Krasnova, H., Veltri, N. F., Eling, N., & Buxmann, P. (2017). Why men and women
continue to use social networking sites: The role of gender differences. The Journal of
Strategic Information Systems, 26(4), 261–284.
Li, X., & Wu, L. (2013). Measuring effects of observational learning and social-network
word-of-mouth (WOM) on the sales of daily-deal vouchers. Paper Presented at the
System Sciences (HICSS).
Liang, T.-P., Ho, Y.-T., Li, Y.-W., & Turban, E. (2011). What drives social commerce: The
role of social support and relationship quality. International Journal of Electronic
Commerce, 16(2), 69–90.
Lin, N. (2001). Social capital: A theory of social structure and action, Vol. 19. Cambridge
university press.
Lin, X., Califf, C., & Featherman, M. (2012). Gender differences in is: A literature review.
AMCIS 2012 Proceedings.
Lin, X., Featherman, M., & Sarker, S. J. I. (2017). Understanding factors affecting users’
social networking site continuance: A gender difference perspective. Information &
Management, 54(3), 383–395.
Lin, X., Li, Y., Califf, C. B., & Featherman, M. (2013). Can social role theory explain
gender differences in facebook usage? Paper Presented at the System Sciences (HICSS).
Lin, X., Zhang, D., & Li, Y. (2016). Delineating the dimensions of social support on social
networking sites and their effects: A comparative model. Computers in Human
Behavior, 58, 421–430.
Liu, Z., Wang, X., & Liu, J. (2018). How digital natives make their self-disclosure deci-
sions: A cross-cultural comparison. Information Technology and People.
Loch, K. D., & Conger, S. (1996). Evaluating ethical decision making and computer use.
Communications of the ACM, 39(7), 74–83.
Lu, H.-P., & Hsiao, K.-L. (2010). The influence of extro/introversion on the intention to
pay for social networking sites. Information & Management, 47(3), 150–157.
Lu, H.-P., Lin, J. C.-C., Hsiao, K.-L., & Cheng, L.-T. (2010). Information sharing behaviour
on blogs in Taiwan: Effects of interactivities and gender differences. Journal of
Information Science, 36(3), 401–416.
Lundeberg, M. A., Fox, P. W., & Punćcohaŕ, J. (1994). Highly confident but wrong:
Gender differences and similarities in confidence judgments. Journal of Educational
Psychology, 86(1), 114.
Mazman, S. G. (2011). Gender differences in using social networks. The Turkish Online
Journal of Educational Technology, 10(2).
Mowday, R. T., Steers, R. M., & Porter, L. W. (1979). The measurement of organizational
commitment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 14(2), 224–247.
Nahapiet, J., & Ghoshal, S. (1998). Social capital, intellectual capital, and the organiza-
tional advantage. The Academy of Management Review, 242–266.
Noyes, D. (2019). The top 20 valuable Facebook statistics—Updated march 2019. Retrieved
fromhttps://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-statistics/.
Osatuyi, B. J. (2015). Empirical examination of information privacy concerns instrument
in the social media context. AIS Transactions on Replication Research, 1(3), 1–14.
Osman, M. (2018). 28 powerful facebook stats your brand can’t ignore in 2018. https://
sproutsocial.com/insights/facebook-stats-for-marketers/#general.
Pavlou, P. A., Liang, H., & Xue, Y. (2007). Understanding and mitigating uncertainty in
online exchange relationships: A principal-agent perspective. MIS Quarterly, 31(1),
105–136.
Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Lee, J.-Y., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common method
biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended
remedies. The Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(5), 879.
Powell, M., & Ansic, D. (1997). Gender differences in risk behaviour in financial decision-
making: An experimental analysis. Journal of Economic Psychology, 18(6), 605–628.
Prentice, C., Wang, X., & Lin, X. (2018). An organic approach to customer engagement
and loyalty. Journal of Computer Information Systems, 1–10.
Qureshi, I., & Compeau, D. (2009). Assessing between-group differences in information
systems research: A comparison of covariance-and component-based SEM. MIS
Quarterly, 33(1), 197–214.
Rana, N. P., Dwivedi, Y. K., Lal, B., Williams, M. D., & Clement, M. (2017). Citizens’
adoption of an electronic government system: Towards a unified view. Information
Systems Frontiers, 19(3), 549–568.
Rana, N. P., Dwivedi, Y. K., Williams, M. D., & Weerakkody, V. (2016). Adoption of online
public grievance redressal system in India: Toward developing a unified view.
Computers in Human Behavior, 59, 265–282.
Ringle, C. M., Wende, S., & Will, S. (2005). SmartPLS 2.0 (M3) Beta. Hamburg. Available
56
International Journal of Information Management 50 (2020) 45–56
in http://www.smartpls.de.
Shareef, M. A., Mukerji, B., Alryalat, M. A. A., Wright, A., & Dwivedi, Y. K. (2018).
Advertisements on facebook: Identifying the persuasive elements in the development
of positive attitudes in consumers. Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, 43,
258–268.
Shiau, W.-L., Dwivedi, Y. K., & Lai, H.-H. (2018). Examining the core knowledge on fa-
cebook. International Journal of Information Management, 43, 52–63.
Shiau, W.-L., Dwivedi, Y. K., & Yang, H. S. (2017). Co-citation and cluster analyses of
extant literature on social networks. International Journal of Information Management,
37(5), 390–399.
Short, J., Williams, E., & Christie, B. (1976). The social psychology of telecommunications.
Smith, H. J., Milberg, S. J., & Burke, S. J. (1996). Information privacy: Measuring in-
dividuals’ concerns about organizational practices. MIS Quarterly, 167–196.
Stephen, A., & Toubia, O. (2009). Deriving value from social commerce networks. Journal
of Marketing Research Forthcoming.
Sun, Y., Wang, N., Shen, X.-L., & Zhang, J. X. (2015). Location information disclosure in
location-based social network services: Privacy calculus, benefit structure, and
gender differences. Computers in Human Behavior, 52, 278–292.
Tang, F., & Wang, X. (2011). The effects of media characteristics on user satisfaction: A social
presence perspective.
Tang, F., Wang, X., & Norman, C. S. (2013). An investigation of the impact of media
capabilities and extraversion on social presence and user satisfaction. Behaviour &
Information Technology, 32(10), 1060–1073.
Tannen, D. (2001). You just don't understand: Women and men in conversation. William
Morrow Paperbacks.
Taylor, S., & Todd, P. (1995). Assessing IT usage: The role of prior experience. MIS
Quarterly, 561–570.
Trauth, E. M. (2002). Odd girl out: An individual differences perspective on women in the
IT profession. Information Technology and People, 15(2), 98–118.
Trauth, E. M. (2006). Theorizing gender and information technology research.
Encyclopedia of Gender and Information Technology, 2, 1154–1159.
Trauth, E. M. (2013). The role of theory in gender and information systems research.
Information and Organization, 23(4), 277–293.
Trauth, E. M., & Quesenberry, J. L. (2007). Gender and the information technology work-
force: Issues of theory. Idea Group Publishing18.
Trauth, E. M., Quesenberry, J. L., & Huang, H. (2008). A multicultural analysis of factors
influencing career choice for women in the information technology workforce.
Journal of Global Information Management (JGIM), 16(4), 1–23.
Trauth, E. M., Quesenberry, J. L., & Huang, H. (2009). Retaining women in the U.S. IT
workforce: Theorizing the influence of organizational factors. European Journal of
Information Systems, 18(5), 476–497. https://doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2009.31.
Trusov, M., Bucklin, R. E., & Pauwels, K. (2009). Effects of word-of-mouth versus tradi-
tional marketing: Findings from an internet social networking site. Journal of
Marketing, 73(5), 90–102.
Tsai, W., & Ghoshal, S. (1998). Social capital and value creation: The role of intrafirm
networks. The Academy of Management Journal, 464–476.
van den Hooff, B., & De Ridder, J. A. (2004). Knowledge sharing in context: The influence
of organizational commitment, communication climate and CMC use on knowledge
sharing. Journal of Knowledge Management, 8(6), 117–130.
Van Slyke, C., Comunale, C. L., & Belanger, F. (2002). Gender differences in perceptions
of web-based shopping. Communications of the ACM, 45(8), 82–86.
Van Slyke, C., Shim, J., Johnson, R., & Jiang, J. (2006). Concern for information privacy
and online consumer purchasing. Journal of the Association for Information Systems,
7(6), 415–444.
Venkatesh, V., & Morris, M. G. (2000). Why don’t men ever stop to ask for directions?
Gender, social influence, and their role in technology acceptance and usage behavior.
MIS Quarterly, 115–139.
Venkatesh, V., Thong, J., & Xu, X. (2012). Consumer acceptance and use of information
technology: Extending the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology. MIS
Quarterly, 36(1), 157–178.
Wang, X., Lin, X., & Spencer, M. K. (2019). Exploring the effects of extrinsic motivation on
consumer behaviors in social commerce: Revealing consumers’ perceptions of social
commerce benefits. International Journal of Information Management, 45, 163–175.
Wolin, L. D., & Korgaonkar, P. (2003). Web advertising: Gender differences in beliefs,
attitudes and behavior. Internet Research, 13(5), 375–385.
Xu, X., Wang, X., Li, Y., & Haghighi, M. (2017). Business intelligence in online customer
textual reviews: Understanding consumer perceptions and influential factors.
International Journal of Information Management, 37(6), 673–683.
Yin, G., Cheng, X., & Zhu, L. (2011). Understanding continuance usage of social networking
services: A theoretical model and empirical study of the Chinese context.
Zhang, K. Z., Lee, M. K., Cheung, C. M., & Chen, H. (2009). Understanding the role of
gender in bloggers’ switching behavior. Decision Support Systems, 47(4), 540–546.
Zhang, Y., Dang, Y., & Chen, H. (2013). Research note: Examining gender emotional
differences in Web forum communication. Decision Support Systems, 55(3), 851–860.