Information privacy has been called one of the most important ethical issues of the informal Allen Lee was the accepting senior for this paper. tion age. Public opinion polls show rising levels of concern about privacy among Americans. Against this backdrop, research into issues associated with information privacy is increasing. Based on a number of preliminary studies, it has become apparent that organizational practices, individuals' perceptions of these practices, and societal responses are inextricably linked in many ways. Theories regarding these relationships are slowly emerging. Unfortunately, researchers attempting to examine such relationships through confirmatory empirical approaches may be impeded by the lack of validated instruments for measuring individuals' concerns about organizational information privacy practices.

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We conducted two studies to examine how a potential helper is affected by having a communal orientation toward a relationship with a potential recipient and by the potential recipient's sadness. We hypothesized that (a) having a communal orientation would increase helping and that (b) people high in communal orientation, but not others, would respond to a potential recipient's sadness by increasing helping. These hypotheses were tested in two studies. In Study 1, individual differences in communal orientation toward relationships were measured by using a new communal orientation scale reported for the first time in this article. In Study 2, manipulations were used to lead subjects to desire either a communal or an exchange relationship with another person. In both studies, subjects were exposed to a sad person or to a person in a neutral mood whom they were given a chance to help. As hypothesized, in both studies communally oriented subjects helped the other significantly more than did others. Also as hypothesized, in both studies communally oriented subjects but not others, increased helping in response to the other person's sadness although this effect reached statistical significance only in the second study.

This article investigates the relation between alternative brand extension strategies and negative feedback effects of such extensions. We examine situations in which extensions may dilute family brand beliefs and create negative affect and how a sub‐branding strategy (a new brand name in conjunction with a family brand name) may mitigate these effects. We find negative feedback effects when (a) extensions are perceived as belonging to a product category dissimilar from those associated with the family brand and (b) extension attribute information is inconsistent with image beliefs associated with the family brand. Relative to a direct extension, a sub‐branding strategy mitigated these negative feedback effects and improved consumer evaluations of extensions belonging to dissimilar product categories.

The 1990s have seen a resurgence of interest in information privacy. Public opinion surveys show that many citizens are becoming greatly concerned about threats to their information privacy, with levels of such concern reaching all-time highs. Perhaps as a response to the growing concerns of citizens, the media are devoting more attention to privacy issues, and governmental regulation of the corporate privacy environment is increasing in many countries. Almost all developed countries have grappled with the trade-offs between open access to information-which enables economic efficiency-and an individual's right to privacy. Consistent with these trade-offs, many recent incidents suggest that regulatory approaches to information privacy, corporate management of personal data, and consumer reactions are becoming tightly interwoven around the world. To provide some insights into these relationships, we develop a conceptual model and test it with a cross-cultural sample from 19 different countries.In general, we find that a country's regulatory approach to the corporate management of information privacy is affected by its cultural values and by individuals' information privacy concerns. In addition, as governments become more involved in the corporate management of information privacy, internal management of such issues seems to tighten. This result supports previous observations that most firms take a primarily reactive approach to managing privacy by waiting for an external threat before crafting cohesive policies that confront their information practices. Moreover, when corporations are not perceived to adequately manage information privacy issues, and/or when privacy concerns rise, individuals are more inclined to prefer government intervention and be distrustful of firm self-regulation. As such, citizens may look to lawmakers to enact stricter regulation to reduce their privacy concerns. These findings and several international trends suggest that the self-regulatory model of privacy governance may not be sustainable over the long term.Findings from this research constitute an important contribution to the emerging theoretical base of information privacy research and should be particularly enlightening to those managing information privacy issues. Several directions for future research are also discussed.