Online Information Sharing About Risks: The Case of Organic Food

Abstract

Individuals have to make sense of an abundance of information to decide whether or not to purchase certain food products. One of the means to sense-making is information sharing. This article reports on a quantitative study examining online information sharing behavior regarding the risks of organic food products. An online survey among 535 respondents was conducted in the Netherlands to examine the determinants of information sharing behavior, and their relationships. Structural equation modeling was applied to test both the measurement model and the structural model. Results showed that the intention to share information online about the risks of organic food was low. Conversations and email were the preferred channels to share information; of the social media Facebook stood out. The developed model was found to provide an adequate description of the data. It explained 41% of the variance in information sharing. Injunctive norms and outcome expectancies were most important in predicting online information sharing, followed by information-related determinants. Risk-perception-related determinants showed a significant, but weak, positive relationship with online information sharing. Implications for authorities communicating on risks associated with food are addressed.

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“…Participants viewed screenshots of an alleged Facebook post asking for opinions on nanodesigned food. Facebook was chosen because of its large number of users and its use in information seeking (Basilisco & Cha, ; Cheung & Lee, ; Hilverda & Kuttschreuter, ). The three conditions differed in the valence of the four comments that were positioned just below the post: 4 positive comments, 4 negative comments or a mixed set of 2 positive and 2 negative comments (Figure ).…”

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“…And during interactions with others, while giving and receiving valuable information as social support, the process benefits the individual, as well as others. Although information seeking and sharing are distinct behaviors, information seeking is suggested as a determinant of information sharing, helping to build the content (and confidence in the content) that is shared and a few studies have shown that information seeking contributes to information sharing (Hilverda and Kuttschreuter 2018;Kuttschreuter and Hilverda 2019;Yang, Kahlor, and Griffin 2014). Therefore, we added the construct of information seeking to capture the synergistic role that seeking plays alongside sharing behaviors, and we proposed a positive relationship between information seeking and information sharing.…”

Threat intelligence platform for the energy sector

“…As far as the broad information exchange context is concerned, Hilverda and Kuttschreuter studied IS incentives taking the context of food decisions as a reference. The authors developed a structural equation model with four categories of determinants including individuals' beliefs about sharing, social factors, information characteristics, and risk‐perception attributes.…”

“…However, organizations are reluctant to share information on experienced cyberincidents either with partners, governments, or competitors . Unease about admitting of being involved in a cyberincident, potentially negative consequences related to damaged reputation and a competitive disadvantage in the market, sensitivity, and criticality of data or natural, instinctive reluctance to sharing delicate data are just some examples of reasons for organizations not joining cyberincident IS initiatives. Table provides an overview of the reasons for the reluctance.…”