The adaptive roles of positive and negative emotions in organizational insiders’ security-based precaution taking

Keywords

Broaden-and-build theory (BBT); Emotions; Information security; Organizational security; Positive psychology; Precaution taking; Psychological capital (PsyCap); Psychological distancing

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.

Publication Date

1-1-2019

Publication Title

Information Systems Research

Volume

30

Issue

4

Number of Pages

1228-1247

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1287/isre.2019.0860

Socpus ID

85076243081 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85076243081

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