Paper Type
Complete
Abstract
Cyber-victimization of small businesses exposes society to significant cyber risk due to the critical role of small businesses in our economies. However, uplifting small business cybersecurity is difficult with small businesses unmotivated. Recognizing the role of the ecosystem, one solution may involve using these ecosystems to encourage cybersecurity uplift. Focusing on the immediate ecosystem reflecting small business close relationships, we conducted interviews with 11 respondents involved in supporting small businesses to identify influential factors and stakeholders in this immediate ecosystem. Our respondents identified that Australian small businesses carefully form their ecosystems considering their own characteristics as resource-poor, time-poor, peer driven, intuitive and evidence driven. Hence, ecosystem members tend to be in-person and trusted, e.g. financial advisors, in Australia. Effective policies should leverage these stakeholders to ensure there is uptake. Thus, our study has implications for researchers and practitioners identifying trusted stakeholders and the efficacy of using these trusted stakeholders.
Paper Number
1523
Recommended Citation
Tsen, Elinor and Ko, Ryan, "Uplift and Motivate – the Role of the Mesosystem for Small Businesses’ Cybersecurity" (2026). AMCIS 2026 Proceedings. 23.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2026/sig_sec/sig_sec/23
Uplift and Motivate – the Role of the Mesosystem for Small Businesses’ Cybersecurity
Cyber-victimization of small businesses exposes society to significant cyber risk due to the critical role of small businesses in our economies. However, uplifting small business cybersecurity is difficult with small businesses unmotivated. Recognizing the role of the ecosystem, one solution may involve using these ecosystems to encourage cybersecurity uplift. Focusing on the immediate ecosystem reflecting small business close relationships, we conducted interviews with 11 respondents involved in supporting small businesses to identify influential factors and stakeholders in this immediate ecosystem. Our respondents identified that Australian small businesses carefully form their ecosystems considering their own characteristics as resource-poor, time-poor, peer driven, intuitive and evidence driven. Hence, ecosystem members tend to be in-person and trusted, e.g. financial advisors, in Australia. Effective policies should leverage these stakeholders to ensure there is uptake. Thus, our study has implications for researchers and practitioners identifying trusted stakeholders and the efficacy of using these trusted stakeholders.
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