Ethics and Social Networking: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Evaluating Online Information Disclosure

Thanks to recent technological advancements, social networking has seen unprecedented growth. Services such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have evolved from niche communities to active cyber-societies. In addition to an increase in the diffusion of social media, there has also been an increase in the amount and type of information that participants share in these online environments. In this paper, the authors integrate decision making research from three disciplines -marketing, theology and information systems - to explain information disclosure in online communities. They use these disciplines to provide a comprehensive review of existing literature and present innovative recommendations for research and practice. In particular, the authors recommend Potter's Box as a useful framework for evaluating the ethical implications of online information disclosure.