Impact of negative emotions on violations of information security policy and possible mitigations

ABSTRACT

Security research on the role of employees’ negative emotions in their information security policy (ISP) violations is limited. In this study, we examine how employees’ negative emotions influence their intention to violate ISP. To understand how to reduce employees’ negative emotions, we investigate the effects of perceived organisational support, psychological ownership, and work engagement. We test our hypotheses using survey data of 318 employees from various organisations in China. Results indicate that employees with negative emotions are more likely to violate ISP, while perceived organisational support, psychological ownership, and work engagement can reduce employees’ negative emotions. Furthermore, psychological ownership and work engagement partially mediate the relationship between perceived organisational support and negative emotions. The theoretical and practical significance of these results and the direction of future research are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Perceived organisational support
• psychological ownership
• work engagement
• negative emotions
• intention to violate ISP

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This study was partially funded by Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing of China (grant number cstc2020jcyj-msxmX0820) and Natural Science Foundation of Shandong Province of China (grant number ZR2020MG024).