Punishment, Justice, and Compliance in Mandatory IT Settings

Yajiong Xue (), Huigang Liang () and Liansheng Wu ()
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Yajiong Xue: Department of Management Information Systems, College of Business, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina 27858
Huigang Liang: Department of Management Information Systems, College of Business, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina 27858
Liansheng Wu: Guanghua School of Management, Peking University, Beijing 100871, P. R. China

Information Systems Research, 2011, vol. 22, issue 2, 400-414

Abstract: This paper aims to understand the influence of punishment and perceived justice on user compliance with mandatory information technology (IT) policies. Drawing on punishment research and justice theory, a research model is developed. Data collected from a field survey of enterprise resource planning (ERP) users are analyzed to test the proposed hypotheses. The results indicate that IT compliance intention is strongly influenced by perceived justice of punishment, which is negatively influenced by actual punishment. When perceived justice of punishment is considered, the effect of satisfaction on compliance intention decreases and that of perceived usefulness becomes insignificant. This paper contributes to information systems (IS) research and practice by drawing attention to the importance of punishment, particularly perceived justice of punishment, in mandatory IT settings. It delineates the relationships among actual punishment, punishment expectancy, perceived justice of punishment, and IT compliance intention, and thus provides a better understanding of user compliance behavior in mandatory IT settings.

Keywords: punishment; punishment expectancy; distributive justice; procedural justice; informational justice; fairness; mandatory context; compliance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:inm:orisre:v:22:y:2011:i:2:p:400-414

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