IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-03037263.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Information security in SMEs: determinants of CEOs’ protective and supportive behaviors

Author

Listed:
  • Yves Barlette

    (MRM - Montpellier Research in Management - UPVM - Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 - UPVD - Université de Perpignan Via Domitia - Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier (GSCM) - Montpellier Business School - UM - Université de Montpellier)

  • Annabelle Jaouen

Abstract

This research addresses the determinants of CEOs' actions regarding the information security (ISS) of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This article aims to (a) identify factors influencing CEOs' ISS actions, (b) examine the relevance of protection motivation theory (PMT) in explaining top management support (TMS, i.e., supportive actions), and (c) find potential differentiated effects on protective vs. supportive actions. The results of a questionnaire-based survey (N=200) show that the PMT and social influence constructs, while explaining a significant amount of variance, exert differentiated effects: in contrast with protective actions, which are influenced mainly by self-efficacy, SME CEOs' supportive actions are strongly affected by the social influence of peers (partners and competitors) and customers. At a theoretical level, this research validates the relevance of the PMT framework for the study of TMS determinants in the context of ISS. This study is also the first to distinguish between these two types of actions and offers new insights on CEOs' ISS-related behavior literature. For practitioners, the results imply that even when CEOs do not exert protective actions, it is important to build on their professional relations to trigger and enhance their supportive actions.

Suggested Citation

  • Yves Barlette & Annabelle Jaouen, 2019. "Information security in SMEs: determinants of CEOs’ protective and supportive behaviors," Post-Print hal-03037263, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03037263
    DOI: 10.3917/sim.193.0007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03037263. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.