The Impact of Collectivism and Psychological Ownership on Protection Motivation : A Cross-Cultural Examination

Increased deregulation and globalization have encouraged organizations to expand the cultural diversity of their employees. Integrating each employee into an organization’s culture, including practices regarding the protection of information, is critical. Because active employee participation is important for security, managers may need to evaluate individual cultural values to motivate employees to perform secure behaviors. This study analyzes these potential differences by examining two individual characteristics — collectivism and psychological ownership of information — within the context of information-security-related behaviors. The results of this study indicate that an individual’s personal orientation towards collectivism has an impact on psychological ownership and the intention not to perform secure behaviors. Furthermore, psychological ownership was shown to have a significant impact on the protection motivation constructs as well as on intention. The findings of this study contribute to information security research by studying collectivism’s effect on psychological ownership and psychological ownership’s impact on protection motivation