CCE Theses and Dissertations
Date of Award
2015
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy in Information Systems (DISS)
Department
Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences
Advisor
Yair Levy
Committee Member
Michelle Ramim
Committee Member
James Parrish
Keywords
Consumer Control, Fair Information Practices, Information Privacy, Information Sharing, Personal Information Privacy Violations, Privacy Policy, Information science, Organizational behavior, Marketing
Abstract
Consumers have begun to take a more proactive approach to their healthcare by accessing pharmaceutical companies Websites to obtain health and drug information, support groups, rebates, coupons, as well as free drug trials. In exchange for these benefits, companies require consumers to voluntarily disclose information. However, research has shown that consumers continue to be concerned about how their information is managed, used, and distributed by companies, especially if accessed via the Web. To date, there has been limited empirical research to examine the actual online practices of companies when it comes to privacy, especially those of pharmaceutical companies. Using Delphi expert panel process, the components of a benchmarking index were identified to examine the documented and actual online practices of 100 Website registrations with pharmaceutical companies. The evolution for the development of an index to measure the personal information privacy violations of pharmaceutical companies is presented. Second, empirical evidence is provided regarding the magnitude of voluntary adherence to the Fair Information Practices (FIPs) by pharmaceutical companies based upon the personal information privacy violations. The results revealed that companies with headquarters in Europe had fewer personal information privacy violations than those in Asia, UK, and the US. Moreover, the results indicate that fewer personal information privacy violations occur for chronic conditions than for non-chronic conditions, as well as fewer violations occur with Website registrations for updates than for discounts. Finally, both Europe and UK demonstrated more overall adherence to FIPs than the US and Asia. This suggests that self-regulation may not be sufficient, while more enforcement may be necessary to decrease personal information privacy violations.
NSUWorks Citation
Shonda Dellena Brown. 2015. An Information Privacy Examination of the Practices of Pharmaceutical Companies Regarding Use of Information Collected Through Their Websites. Doctoral dissertation. Nova Southeastern University. Retrieved from NSUWorks, Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences. (47)
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/gscis_etd/47.
Included in
Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons, Computer Sciences Commons, Health Information Technology Commons, Marketing Commons, Organizational Behavior and Theory Commons, Pharmacy Administration, Policy and Regulation Commons