Title
Information Protection Behaviors: Morality And Organizational Criticality
Abstract
Purpose Organizational insiders play a critical role in protecting sensitive information. Prior research finds that moral beliefs influence compliance decisions. Yet, it is less clear what factors influence moral beliefs and the conditions under which those factors have stronger/weaker effects. Using an ethical decision-making model and value congruence theory, this study aims to investigate how moral intensity and organizational criticality influence moral beliefs and intentions to perform information protection behaviors. Design/methodology/approach The hypotheses were tested using a scenario-based survey of 216 organizational insiders. Two of the scenarios depict low criticality information security protection behaviors and two depict high criticality behaviors. Findings A major finding is that users rely more on perceived social consensus and magnitude of consequences when organizational criticality is low and on temporal immediacy and proximity when criticality is high. In addition, the moral intensity dimensions explain more variance in moral beliefs when organizational criticality is low.Originality/value This study adds value by investigating the separate dimensions of moral intensity on information protection behaviors. It also is the first to examine moral intensity under conditions of low and high organizational criticality.
Year
DOI
Venue
2019
10.1108/ICS-07-2018-0092
INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SECURITY
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Value congruence, Moral intensity, Ethical decision-making, Information protection behavior, Organizational criticality
Journal
27
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
3
2056-4961
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Nancy K. Lankton119515.73
Charles T. Stivason200.34
Anil Gurung3606.01