Really, What Are They Offering? A Taxonomy of Companies' Actual Response Strategies after a Data Breach

Data breaches have become an everyday phenomenon. As a consequence, organizations no longer solely focus on prevention but also proactively prepare for the next data breach. A key element of these efforts is data breach response strategies that aim to retain trust and loyalty of the affected parties. Prior research provides important insights into the effects, causes, and conditions of effective response strategies. However, an underlying conceptualization of different forms of data breach response strategies is lacking. By analyzing the response strategies of 313 data breaches, we inductively derive a taxonomy of data breach response strategies. Our results suggest that response actions can be classified along eight dimensions including 22 distinct characteristics. Our research provides contributions to research and practice. The taxonomy provides a comprehensive framework and allows to link different research streams logically. Subsequently, the taxonomy helps managers to distinguish different data breach response strategies and implement suitable measures.