The Role of Employees’ Threat Appraisal in Security Certification Compliance: Insights from a Protection Motivation Approach

Date

2025-01-07

Contributor

Advisor

Department

Instructor

Depositor

Speaker

Researcher

Consultant

Interviewer

Narrator

Transcriber

Annotator

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Volume

Number/Issue

Starting Page

4499

Ending Page

Alternative Title

Abstract

The rising number of cybersecurity threats poses significant risks to organizations. Security and data protection certifications, such as ISO/IEC 27001, offer a promising approach to improving cybersecurity defenses and gaining market legitimacy. However, the effectiveness of these certifications depends on their substantive internalization within organizations. This study explores the factors driving employees’ certification internalization using Protection Motivation Theory. We conducted an online experiment with 437 participants, manipulating their perception of threats resulting from certification noncompliance. Our findings show that perceived security threats, compliance costs, and fear shape employees' certification compliance intention, while compliance efficacy does not. The perceived threat of customer loss reduced certification compliance intention. Our study contributes to certification research by taking an employee perspective and explaining how employees’ threat and coping appraisals impact their internalization intention.

Description

Keywords

Innovative Behavioral IS Security and Privacy Research, certification, compliance, information security, iso 27001, protection motivation theory

Citation

Extent

10

Format

Geographic Location

Time Period

Related To

Proceedings of the 58th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

Related To (URI)

Table of Contents

Rights

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Rights Holder

Local Contexts

Email libraryada-l@lists.hawaii.edu if you need this content in ADA-compliant format.