The influence of organizational values on employee attitude and information security behavior: the mediating role of psychological capital

With increased remote working, employers are concerned with employees’ commitment and compliance with security procedures. Through the lens of psychological capital, this study aims to investigate whether strong organizational values can improve employees’ commitment to the organization and security behaviors.

Using Qualtrics platform, the authors conducted an online survey. The survey participants are college-educated, full-time employees. The authors used structural equation modeling to analyze 289 responses.

The results indicate perceived importance of organizational values is associated with increased organizational commitment and information security behavior. The authors find that psychological capital partially mediates these relations suggesting that employees’ psychological capital effectively directs employees toward an affinity for the organization and information security behavior. The results highlight the importance of organizational values for improving security behavior and organizational commitment. Second, the results suggest that psychological capital is an effective mechanism for this influence. Finally, the authors find that individual differences (gender, organizational level and education) are boundary conditions on their findings, providing a nuanced view of their results and offering opportunities for further investigation.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore organizational values in relation to information security behaviors. In addition, this study investigates the underlying mechanism of this relationship by showing psychological capital’s mediating role in this relationship. Therefore, the authors suggest organizations create a supportive environment that appreciates innovation, quality services, diversity and collaboration. Furthermore, organizations should communicate the importance of these values to their employees to motivate them to have a stronger affective commitment and a more careful set of security behaviors.