Investigating Employees’ Proactive Extra-Role Information Security Behaviors through Security Mindfulness

Connecting mindfulness with organizational information security (InfoSec) is an increasingly attractive research topic. This paper conceptualizes InfoSec mindfulness as a dynamic InfoSec-specific trait evident when handling organizational information assets. We investigate the motivational factors that contribute to InfoSec mindfulness and the effects of InfoSec mindfulness on employees’ proactive extra-role information security behaviors (ISBs), which refers to self-initiated and future-oriented behaviors that go beyond an organization’s information security policies (ISPs) and are independent on rewards or punishments. This paper provides significant theoretical contributions to InfoSec behavioral literature by conceptualizing InfoSec mindfulness and deepening the understanding of proactive extra-role ISBs. We also summarize our research methodology to develop the scale of InfoSec mindfulness and test its validity for our future study