Start Date
10-12-2017 12:00 AM
Description
The study of information security behavior has been increasing in information systems (IS) literature with Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) serving as one the most important theoretical contributions. However, there are inconsistent findings on the relationships among the variables derived from PMT. Thus, we conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the relationships among PMT. 71 previously published studies were analyzed. We found coping appraisal variables of response-efficacy and self-efficacy to have the largest average effects on security behavior. In addition, we found security context and culture to moderate some of the pair-wise correlations. The findings showed non-significant correlations among perceived vulnerability—self-efficacy, perceived severity-response cost, self-efficacy—perceived threat, and response efficacy—perceived threat. For the SEM analysis, we could not confirm the significant effect of response cost as a coping appraisal on behavior intention. Results are important to guiding future researchers wishing to employ PMT as a theoretical lens in the study of information security.
Recommended Citation
Mou, Jian; Cohen, Jason; and Kim, JongKi, "A Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Modeling Test of Protection Motivation Theory in Information Security Literature" (2017). ICIS 2017 Proceedings. 5.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2017/Security/Presentations/5
A Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Modeling Test of Protection Motivation Theory in Information Security Literature
The study of information security behavior has been increasing in information systems (IS) literature with Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) serving as one the most important theoretical contributions. However, there are inconsistent findings on the relationships among the variables derived from PMT. Thus, we conducted a meta-analysis to investigate the relationships among PMT. 71 previously published studies were analyzed. We found coping appraisal variables of response-efficacy and self-efficacy to have the largest average effects on security behavior. In addition, we found security context and culture to moderate some of the pair-wise correlations. The findings showed non-significant correlations among perceived vulnerability—self-efficacy, perceived severity-response cost, self-efficacy—perceived threat, and response efficacy—perceived threat. For the SEM analysis, we could not confirm the significant effect of response cost as a coping appraisal on behavior intention. Results are important to guiding future researchers wishing to employ PMT as a theoretical lens in the study of information security.