Revealing or concealing: privacy information disclosure in intelligent voice assistant usage- a configurational approach

Purpose Based on communication privacy management (CPM) theory, this study aimed to explore how gender and age criteria, motivational criterion (locatability), benefit-risk ratio criteria (perceived benefits of privacy information disclosure and privacy concerns), contextual criteria (privacy experience) and boundary coordination and turbulence (perceived effectiveness of privacy policy) interact and combine in leading to voice assistant (VA) users' intention to reveal or conceal their privacy information. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire was designed and distributed to car drivers who have intelligent VA use experience while driving. A total of 230 valid responses were collected. The fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) approach was used to analyse the data. Findings Via configuration analysis with fsQCA, five equivalent configurations leading to the high intention of disclosing privacy information, and one configuration leading to the intention of concealing privacy information were identified. Four theoretical configurational propositions were proposed. Moreover, the theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed. Originality/value This study offers some insightful implications in the field of private information communication in artificial intelligence applications as well as practical implications for intelligent VA application design. The findings provide empirical evidence of privacy communication management in the context of smart VA usage.