Reacting to the scope of a data breach: The differential role of fear and anger

Subimal Chatterjee, Xiang Gao, Sumantra Sarkar and Cihan Uzmanoglu

Journal of Business Research, 2019, vol. 101, issue C, 183-193

Abstract: We investigate how fearful and angry consumers react to the scope (number of customers affected) of a data breach. In two laboratory studies, we show that whereas fear makes consumers scope sensitive such that their intentions not to purchase from the affected retailer increases with scope, anger makes consumers scope insensitive and their repurchase intentions scope invariant. Process tests show that whereas scope indirectly affects the repurchase intentions of fearful consumers by making the mental image of the breach more vivid to them, scope does not affect how angry consumers imagine the breach nor their repurchase intentions. We find similar results in a field study, analyzing approximately 12,000 news stories of data breaches, showing that scope affects stock market reactions when the stories stress fear over anger but not when they stress anger over fear.

Keywords: Data breach; Fear; Anger; Scope sensitivity; Investor sentiment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:101:y:2019:i:c:p:183-193

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2019.04.024

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