To Share and Protect: Using Regulatory Focus Theory to Examine the Privacy Paradox of Consumers' Social Media Engagement and Online Privacy Protection Behaviors

•Regulatory focus theory may explain the privacy paradox of social media engagement and privacy protection behaviors.•Trust and privacy concerns distinctly mediate these promotion and prevention behaviors respectively.•Social exchange and marketing relationship theories explain the antecedents tested.•Findings inform a personal information engagement matrix, with regulatory orientation and perceived equity as drivers.

Consumers' personal information often informs retailers' marketing efforts in terms of creating value in the online marketplace. This study examines four factors related to consumers' social media engagement and online privacy protection behaviors. Regulatory focus, social exchange, and marketing relationship theories explain the online consumer personal information share-and-protect model developed. Consumers aged 18-64 years across the United States participated in this survey research. The results suggest that while personal privacy violation experience and perceived secondary control of one's personal information are influential antecedents, privacy concerns and trust in social media websites mediate each of these respectively. The findings suggest that promotion- and prevention-related behaviors regarding personal information align with the orientation of the antecedents, indicating that regulatory focus theory shows promise for examining the privacy paradox. We conclude by developing a matrix that integrates regulatory focus and social exchange theories to guide future research.