The Adaptive Roles of Positive and Negative Emotions in Organizational Insiders’ Security-Based Precaution Taking

A. J. Burns (), Tom L. Roberts (), Clay Posey () and Paul Benjamin Lowry ()
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A. J. Burns: Department of Information Systems, Hankamer School of Business, Baylor University, Waco, Texas 76798
Tom L. Roberts: Department of Computer Science, Soules College of Business, The University of Texas at Tyler, Tyler, Texas 75799
Clay Posey: College of Business, Institute for Simulation and Training, Cybersecurity and Privacy Cluster, University of Central Florida, Orlando, Florida 32816
Paul Benjamin Lowry: Department of Business Information Technology, Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia 24061

Information Systems Research, 2019, vol. 30, issue 4, 1228-1247

Abstract: Protecting organizational information is a top priority for most firms. This reality, coupled with the fact that organizational insiders control much of their organizations’ valuable information, has led both researchers and practitioners to acknowledge the importance of insiders’ behavior for information security. Until recently, researchers have employed only a few theories to understand these influences, and this has generated calls for a broadened theoretical repertoire. Given this opportunity, we incorporate the previously developed framework of emotions and add the broaden-and-build theory (BBT) to understand the influence of discrete positive and negative emotions on insiders’ precaution-taking activities. Our findings demonstrate that the relationship between both positive and negative emotions and precaution taking is mediated by insiders’ (1) psychological capital (PsyCap), a higher-order, work-related construct of positive psychological resource capabilities; and (2) psychological distancing, a coping mechanism characterized by insiders’ attempts to detach themselves psychologically from a situation. By considering these factors, our model explains 32% of the variance in insiders’ precaution taking in organizations. Researchers and practitioners can use these findings to develop information-security programs that more effectively utilize emotional appeals to promote insiders’ precaution taking.

Keywords: information security; organizational security; emotions; precaution taking; broaden-and-build theory (BBT); positive psychology; psychological distancing; psychological capital (PsyCap) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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