Research Article
An Empirical Study on Voluntary and Involuntary Motivational Factors Affecting Perception of Non-Intentional Security Violations in Organizations and the Moderating Effect of Regulator Pressure
Kyungpook National University
Published: January 2013 · Vol. 42, No. 1 · pp. 213-239
Full Text
Abstract
Today, corporate security failures have become a significant obstacle to business management, resulting in enormous costs for affected companies, severe damage to trust and reputation, and even bankruptcy. Therefore, the purpose of corporate information security can be defined as reducing internal organizational damage by minimizing security incident prevention against uncertain events. Recently, as interest in potential risk factors related to security attacks, breaches, and violations has expanded, corporate investment in this area has increased, and the scope of application for successful security design has become more specific. In particular, the causes of information security misuse and abuse violations and incidents have been identified as stemming from the absence of basic control items for organizational information security. Moreover, a significant proportion (more than half) of discovered violations have been found to result from non-intentional incidents. In other words, all cases of organizational security problems are caused not by external destructive attacks or general breaches, but rather by non-intentional misuse, human error, negligent monitoring by employees, and the absence of internal organizational procedures. Therefore, the implementation of appropriate processes and a series of control mechanisms for non-intentional security violations within organizations is necessary. Accordingly, this study seeks to find the motivation and answers to the key research question of "What enables organizations to make efforts to control non-intentional security violations?" through empirical evidence. To achieve this research objective, this study proposed voluntary motivational factors (organizational obligation, security violation experience, and work benefits) and involuntary motivational factors (organizational norms, punishment severity, and security threats) as intrinsic organizational elements for raising awareness of non-intentional security violations, and theoretically evaluated the validity of how these factors influence the modification and deterrence of behaviors related to non-intentional security violations and the resulting performance outcomes from an organizational (corporate) perspective. Additionally, this study differentiated itself by empirically testing what role regulatory authority pressure plays in the relationships between security violation awareness, control, and performance outcomes. The structural equation modeling analysis results of the proposed research model showed that voluntary motivational factors—organizational obligation, security violation experience, and work benefits—as well as involuntary motivational factors—organizational norms and punishment severity—had positive effects on security violation awareness. However, it was confirmed that security threats did not have a positive effect on security violation awareness. Furthermore, the moderating effect of regulatory authority pressure, a variable with coercive/compulsory attributes, was also found to have a significant influence on corporate security management. These research findings include key internal and external variables that could not be found in previous qualitative and quantitative studies on security violations. This can provide theoretically and practically important implications from the perspective of organizational and user behavior, including establishing a basis for monitoring and diagnosing security violations and implementing proactive preventive responses through investigations aimed at minimizing losses from the error-related aspects of security incidents.
