Scholarly Works, Business Information Technology
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Browsing Scholarly Works, Business Information Technology by Subject "1505 Marketing"
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- The Adaptive Roles of Positive and Negative Emotions in Organizational Insiders’ Security-Based Precaution TakingBurns, A. J.; Roberts, Tom L.; Posey, Clay; Lowry, Paul Benjamin (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), 2019-12)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 (InfoSec). 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 framework of emotions developed in the information systems (IS) discipline by Beaudry and Pinsonneault (2010) 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 percent of the variance in insiders’ precaution taking in organizations. Researchers and practitioners can use these findings to develop effective insider InfoSec training, including emotional appeals that increase insiders’ precaution taking.
- Going beyond deterrence: A middle-range theory of motives and controls for insider computer abuseBurns, A. J.; Roberts, Tom L.; Posey, Clay; Lowry, Paul Benjamin; Fuller, Bryan (Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences, 2022-04)Despite widespread agreement among practitioners and academicians that organizational insiders are a significant threat to organizational information systems security, insider computer abuse (ICA)—unauthorized and deliberate misuse of organizational information resources by organizational insiders—remains a serious issue. Recent studies have shown that most employees are willing to share confidential or regulated information under certain circumstances and nearly a third to half of major security breaches are tied to insiders. These trends indicate that organizational security efforts, which generally focus on deterrence and sanctions, have yet to effectively address ICA. Therefore, leading security researchers and practitioners have called for a more nuanced understanding of insiders in respect to deterrence efforts. We answer these calls by proposing a middle-range theory of ICA that focuses on understanding the inherent tensions between insider motivations and organizational controls. Our careful review distinguishes two categories of personal motives for ICA: (1) instrumental (i.e., financial benefits) (2) and expressive (i.e., psychological contract violations) motives. Our novel theory of ICA also includes the influence of two classes of controls for ICA: (1) intrinsic (i.e., self-control) and (2) extrinsic (i.e., organizational deterrence) controls. We developed and empirically examined a research model based on our middle-range theory that explains a substantial portion of the variance in ICA (R2 = 0.462). Specifically, our results indicate that both instrumental and expressive motives were positively related to ICA. Moreover, intrinsic self-control exerted significant direct and moderating influences in our research model, whereas extrinsic organizational deterrence failed to exhibit a direct effect on ICA and significantly moderated instrumental motives’ relationship with ICA only. Not only do our results show that self-control exerted a stronger effect on the model than deterrence did (f2self-control = 0.195; f2org.det. = 0.048) but they also help us identify the limits of deterrence in ICA research.
- Moving consumers from ‘free’ to ‘fee’: Addressing the vexing differentiation and fairness issues in the platform-based market of multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) GamesWang, Le; Lowry, Paul Benjamin; Luo, Xin Robert; Li, Han (INFORMS, 2022-03)Companies in platform-based business markets have widely embraced freemium business models where profit primarily depends on a minority of paying customers. However, the key challenge of these models is transitioning participants from free users to paying consumers. To encourage paid consumption, companies often rely on product differentiation such as providing consumers who pay for products or services with enhanced features. However, limited research has addressed how such product differentiation may convert consumers from “free” to “fee.” Our research examines multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games as a compelling example of freemium platform-based business models. We contribute to the freemium literature by introducing three new MOBA-specific differentiations—character competency, character variety, and character-appearance differentiation. We also extend consumption values theory (CVT) into a dual-path model to unveil the underlying mechanisms through which product differentiation influences in-game purchase. We empirically validate our dual-path model using data from a two-wave longitudinal experiment and three cross-sectional experiments. Our findings support opposing mediating paths for product differentiation in character competency and variety and indicate that these two types of differentiation can indeed undermine perceived game fairness. Conversely, character-appearance differentiation exerts only a positive influence on players’ purchasing of in-game items. Consequently, the findings of this study have important potential implications for platform-based companies leveraging freemium business models that seek to increase their share of paying customers.