The Association between Brand Trust, Familiarity and Personal Information Disclosure: A Case of Japanese Consumers

Abstract

This study examined the effects of personal information types and brand familiarity on Japanese consumers’ perceived brand trust, privacy concerns, and anxiety about personal information disclosure to marketers. It also investigated how the cultural dimensions of Japanese consumers affect the relationships between privacy concerns, perceived brand trust, and personal information disclosure outcomes. The results of an online experiment (n = 771) showed that neither personal information requested nor brand familiarity affected Japanese consumers’ anxiety about personal information disclosure. However, cultural factors, namely uncertainty avoidance and independent self-construal, moderated the relationship between brand trust and anxiety regarding personal information disclosure to marketers.

Keywords:

• information disclosure
• culture
• brand trust
• communication privacy management
• Japanese consumers

Ethics statement

This research was approved by the Ethics Review Committee on Research with Human Subjects of Waseda University (#2022-024).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI under Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) Grant Number: 20K01975.