Perceived Security, Privacy, and Trust concerns within Social Networking Sites: the Role of Information Sharing and Relationships Development in the Malaysian Higher Education Institutions’ Marketing

Nowadays, higher education is facing big challenges, which have made a lot of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) interested in attracting more students. Social Networking Sites (SNSs) such as Facebook have experienced exponential growth in recent years. These SNSs offer attractive means of online social interactions and communications, but also raise privacy security, and trust concerns. This study addressed the role of security, privacy, and trust in SNSs in order to share information and develop new relationships, which will affect students’ enrollment and employees’ application in HEIs. The findings suggested that perceived privacy and perceived trust in other members in SNSs is significantly related with the Information sharing. Also, members’ trust in SNSs and its members positively associated with development of new relationships, which is positively associated with students’ enrollment and employees’ application in HEIs. However, there is no significant impact from information sharing to develop new relationships in SNSs.