Consumer adoption of personalised nutrition services from the perspective of a risk–benefit trade-off

Genes Nutr (2015) 10:42 DOI 10.1007/s12263-015-0478-y RESEARCH PAPER Consumer adoption of personalised nutrition services from the perspective of a risk–benefit trade-off Aleksandra Berezowska1 • Arnout R. H. Fischer1 • Amber Ronteltap2 • Ivo A. van der Lans1 • Hans C. M. van Trijp1 Received: 31 March 2015 / Accepted: 26 June 2015 / Published online: 25 September 2015 Ó The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Through a Privacy Calculus (i.e. risk–benefit trade-off) lens, this study identifies factors that contribute to consumers’ adoption of personalised nutrition services. We argue that consumers’ intention to adopt personalised nutrition services is determined by perceptions of Privacy Risk, Personalisation Benefit, Information Control, Information Intrusiveness, Service Effectiveness, and the Benevolence, Integrity, and Ability of a service provider. Data were collected in eight European countries using an online survey. Results confirmed a robust and Europe-wide applicable cognitive model, showing that consumers’ intention to adopt personalised nutrition services depends more on Perceived Personalisation Benefit than on Perceived Privacy Risk. Perceived Privacy Risk was mainly determined by perceptions of Information Control, whereas Perceived Personalisation Benefit primarily depended on Perceived Service Effectiveness. Services that required increasingly intimate personal information, and in particular DNA, raised consumers’ Privacy Risk perceptions, but failed to increase perceptions of Personalisation Benefit. Accordingly, to successfully exploit personalised nutrition, service providers should convey a clear message regarding the benefits and effectiveness of personalised nutrition services. Furthermore, service providers may reduce Privacy Risk by increasing consumer perceptions of Information Control. To enhance perceptions of both Information Control and Service Effectiveness, service providers should make sure that consumers perceive them as competent and reliable. Keywords Personalised nutrition
Consumers
Adoption
Privacy Calculus
Service attributes Introduction & Aleksandra Berezowska Arnout R. H. Fischer Amber Ronteltap Ivo A. van der Lans Hans C. M. van Trijp 1 Department of Social Sciences, Marketing and Consumer Behaviour Group, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands 2 LEI, Wageningen University and Research Centre, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands Research within the field of nutrigenomics has raised high expectations, as increased understanding of the genes–nutrition relationship holds the potential to revolutionise disease prevention and health promotion (Arkadianos et al. 2007; Williams et al. 2008). Once it has reached its maturity, nutrigenomics offers the opportunity to prevent disease and promote health through dietary advice tailored to the individual, also referred to as personalised nutrition, rather than homogenous groups within the population (Ghosh 2010). The urge for personalised nutrition is not surprising, as it may not only lead to the most relevant dietary advice, but also stimulate advice adherence (Hurlimann et al. 2014) through increased involvement (Lustria et al. 2009). Consumer reluctance to adopt 123 42 Page 2 of 14 personalised nutrition may, however, compromise the potential benefits resulting from personalised nutrition. For consumers, enjoying the benefits of personalised nutrition is practically impossible without getting exposed to some degree of privacy risk, as personalised nutrition advice requires information regarding an individual’s: (1) lifestyle (i.e. questionnaires concerning dietary intake and physical activity), (2) phenotype (i.e. current health status based on, for instance, a blood test), and/or (3) genetic make-up (i.e. DNA profiling based on a buccal swab) (Gibney and Walsh 2013; Rimbach and Minihane 2009). Disclosing these types of personal information to a service provider that generates personalised nutrition advice implies potential negative consequences caused by privacy loss (Mothersbaugh et al. 2012). For instance, consumers may have trouble getting health insurance when their genetic information would be made known to their insurance company. Hence, consumers’ willingness to disclose personal information in return for the benefits of personalised nutrition advice, while putting at risk their privacy, is considered decisive in the adoption of personalised nutrition. Although highly relevant for the domain of nutrition and health, consumers’ intention to engage in personalisation is most often studied in business-related contexts such as advertising and e-commerce (e.g. Li and Unger 2012; Taylor et al. 2009; van Doorn and Hoekstra 2013). Due to a difference in the intimacy level of the required personal information (e.g. demographics and purchase history vs. health information), it cannot be assumed that the findings from the business context are fully applicable to personalised nutrition. Hence, to successfully exploit personalised nutrition, knowledge on factors that contribute to consumers’ adoption of personalised nutrition is required. The current study, therefore, aims to provide insight into determinants of consumers’ intention to adopt personalised nutrition. Theoretical framework The theoretical framework (Fig. 1) of this study proposes consumers’ intention to adopt personalised nutrition to be determined by the shared impact of risk and benefit perceptions (Berezowska et al. 2014). The balance between desired benefits and undesired risks is assessed by combining risk and benefit perceptions into an overall information disclosure valuation (Li 2012), captured by the Privacy Calculus (Culnan and Armstrong 1999). The Privacy Calculus builds on the principles of behavioural decision-making theories (e.g. Blau 1964; Kahneman and Tversky 1979; Vroom 1964) in assuming that consumers behave in ways that maximise positive outcomes (i.e. benefits) and minimise negative outcomes (i.e. risks) resulting from information disclosure (Keith et al. 2013). Hence, consumers will only be 123 Genes Nutr (2015) 10:42 willing to adopt personalised nutrition, rather than general dietary advice, if the perceived benefits of information disclosure offset the perceived risks of information disclosure (Dinev and Hart 2006). When the outcome of the Privacy Calculus is positive (i.e. perceived benefits are greater than perceived risks), consumers are more inclined to disclose personal information for the purpose of personalisation. In contrast, a negative Privacy Calculus outcome (i.e. perceived benefits are lower than perceived risks) is likely to result in the rejection of personalised nutrition (Xu et al. 2011). Therefore, we hypothesise that: Hypothesis 1 The more positive the outcome of the Privacy Calculus, the more likely consumers are to adopt personali (...truncated)