Editorial: Special issue on cyber security, privacy and ethics of information systems

Alessandro Acquisti, Tamara Dinev, Mark Keil
2019 Information Systems Frontiers  
This special Issue of Information Systems Frontiers, dedicated to the memory of H. Jeff Smith (Keil et al. 2019), contains a selection of manuscripts originally accepted for the ICIS 2018 track on Cyber Security, Privacy and Ethics of IS. Authors of all manuscripts accepted into the ICIS track were invited to submit revised versions of their manuscripts for peer-review at the journal. Six manuscripts were eventually chosen for this issue. The manuscripts encompass multiple methodologies
more » ... ng meta-analysis, expert interviews, and experiments) and a plurality of topics (from information security compliance to the impact of data regulation on innovation; from identity theft to consumers' perceptions of information security). Together, they encapsulate and showcase the richness and variety of contemporary IS research at the intersection of security, privacy, trust, and ethics. Three of the manuscripts focus on consumers' attitudes, behaviors, or reactions to privacy, security, and ethical issues in digital environments. Ayaburi et al. (2019) present a study on individuals' selfregulation and habitual use of technology in unknown wireless networks use contexts. Their study asserts that regular use of wireless networks under deficient self-regulation (DSR) has created many negative outcomes, and few studies have explicated factors leading to such outcomes. To address this, the authors develop a conceptual self-regulation model that explains the antecedents and consequences of DSR and test the model using a survey instrument. Their findings suggest that DSR is a good predictor of individuals' habits (routine and automatic) of using technology in the wireless context. DSR increases the propensity to consciously or unconsciously connect to wireless networks habitually. In a related work, Mohr and Walter (2019) shed light on how consumers form their perceptions of information security while buying goods online. Existing research has mainly focused on how information security concerns affect online behavior and online shopping. Using an Elaboration Likelihood model (ELM), the authors perform an exploratory and experimental study, dissecting the paradoxical security behavior and transfer of trust attitude that customers exhibit while shopping online. Their findings indicate that customers form their trusting beliefs towards a previously unknown retailer through the peripheral route of ELM based on technology or website sophistication, and that they transfer their trusting beliefs from the retailer to the trust expectation that their information will be secure. Finally, Walsh et al. (2019) study consumers' fear of online identity theft (FOIT). Their study validates a previous scale (developed for the German context) in a cross-cultural setting, and also proposes an abbreviated version of the scale. The manuscript addresses two important issues. One is to better understand consumers' fear of online identity theft -a psychological barrier that can affect consumers' online decisions. A second issue is methodological: as cross-cultural analyses are of increasing importance in contemporary privacy and security research, the authors' efforts to test and increase the reliability, validity, and cross-national applicability of a measurement scale (namely, the FOIT scale) are of particular significance. Three other manuscripts concentrate instead on firms' behavior, focusing on security compliance behavior, the security divide between SME and large companies, and the impact of privacy regulation on innovation. Trang and Brendel (2019) examine the applicability of deterrence theory in information security policy compliance research. Their study echoes the concerns of information security mangers in enforcing information security policy (ISP) in relation to both employee negligence and intentional insider breaches. The authors indicate the inconsistences surrounding the support of deterrence theory for predicting ISP compliance behavior. The paper focuses on insiders'
doi:10.1007/s10796-019-09971-5 fatcat:ddi3kihrivefzlumn24n3lbtve