Unethical use of information access and analytics in B2B service organisations: the dark side of behavioural loyalty

Abstract

In business-to-business (B2B) service organisations, unethical practices frequently lead to an adverse impact on business. Therefore, B2B must adopt the ethical use of information access and analytics to deliver the best service quality as it positively influences behavioural loyalty. This study explores the unethical use of information access and analytics on B2B relationships to observe the dark side of service quality and behavioural loyalty. A novel conceptual model based on information access, analytics, service quality, customer perceived value and behavioural loyalty is proposed. A quantitative methodology is applied to raw data gathered from 307 respondents of B2B service firms. This study concludes that unethical use of access to privacy and secured information, and unethical use of analytics in sensitive inferences, risk assessment, model drift and eDiscovery results in unfavourable service quality. The unfavourable service quality leads to unfavourable behavioural loyalty. Therefore, acting ethically is essential for long-lasting relationships.