Internal motivators for the protection of organizational data

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of internal motivators (psychological ownership, perceived control, and self-efficacy) on employees’ intention to protect organizational data. The threat of cybersecurity breaches is increasing, as are the realization of cybersecurity breaches and the subsequent loss of data. While information security policies increase employees’ intentions to protect organizational data, they do not guarantee employee compliance. Results indicate that self-efficacy is associated with perceived control, which, in turn, is associated with perceived psychological ownership of organizational data. Furthermore, self-efficacy and psychological ownership are both associated with an increase in intention to protect organizational data