Data breaches and cyber incidents are on the rise, and companies continually research new technologies to defend against attacks and protect customer data. The blockchain is a data store designed to promote data privacy, as well as transaction integrity. Enterprises in several industries, especially banking, have investigated the implementation of blockchain-based databases to replace centralised databases as one mechanism for protecting customers’ data by separating transactional data from personally identifiable information. Despite the blockchain’s privacy protections, consumers remain largely unaware of these benefits. Building on the Health Belief Model (HBM), we include privacy concerns and inertia as critical factors that influence consumers’ perceptions of blockchain-based databases’ benefits. Using a sample of 304 respondents, we test a theoretical model incorporating these factors. Our study results indicate threat severity, threat susceptibility, awareness, and inertia significantly influence the perceived benefits of blockchain, which has a significant positive influence on consumers’ intention to switch to blockchain-based applications. Although consumers’ comfort with the status quo of traditional banking mechanisms is a significant barrier to the realisation of blockchain banking applications benefits, additional awareness of consumer privacy protections can persuade customers to use the blockchain-based applications, especially if they exhibit heightened privacy concerns.

Organizations have recognized the revenue potential for social commerce (purchasing products via social networks), but such transactions only comprise a small percentage of revenue. Companies have yet to determine the factors that contribute to social commerce failure. In social networking, trust is established when two parties have a history of trustworthy interactions. Acknowledging that social commerce represents a fundamentally different purchasing environment than typical business transactions, we examine the role of trust in determining consumers’ decisions to engage in social commerce for their purchases. We apply trust transfer theory to the social commerce context to assess whether trust in known entities can be transferred to business transactions facilitated through a social network with unknown parties. Using a field survey, we found that trust in the Internet and trust in firms significantly influence consumers’ trust and ultimately their intention to engage in social commerce. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Data loss represents a significant threat to individuals and organizations. Based on Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) and service convenience literature, a theoretical model is developed to empirically assess how the threat of data loss and the convenience of cloud-based backup solutions affect a user's intentions to adopt the cloud as a sufficient backup alternative. The factorial survey method was employed, using realistic vignettes to orthogonally manipulate the independent variables and offer more experimental control. Hypotheses were tested using 152 individuals recruited from a large southeastern university. Results from the study indicate that users who perceive the cloud to seamlessly back up their data with minimal effort and replicate their data across all of their devices are more likely to adopt the cloud for data backups. Further, it is determined that individuals who feel they are more vulnerable to data loss and perceive the data loss as severe will also leverage the cloud when backing up their data. Convenience is more influential than threat perceptions when individuals are evaluating cloud adoption, providing implications for individual users exploring the possibility of cloud-based storage solutions.