BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Preliminary results of an internationally focused University of Alabama at Birmingham(UAB) study show that industries in traditionally individualistic Western cultures have more difficulty ensuring information security policy compliance among employees when compared to their more collectively focused counterparts in Eastern cultures.

Allen Johnston, Ph.D., assistant professor of information systems in the UAB School of Business, will offer these preliminary findings at the first conference on data security. The International Working Conference on Information Systems Security Research is being held May 29-30 in Cape Town, South Africa. The conference is sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing's Technical Committee on Information Systems (IFIP TC 8).

Johnston, who is one of just 24 international researchers invited to the conference, will present his data with collaborators Merrill Warkentin of Mississippi State University and Xin Luo of the University of New Mexico. Their working paper, National Culture and Information Privacy, explores the influential effects of individualism and collectivism on privacy concerns and safe information environments. Using data sets collected in both the United States and China, the research looks to investigate cultural influences on workplace behavior, specifically an employee's choice to either follow company security guidelines or perpetrate fraud.

"Preliminarily, we are finding that more individualistic employees value their personal privacy over company concerns, meaning they will be resistant to a company's desire to monitor behavior or implement security protocols that would seem to infringe on their personal freedoms," Johnston said. "This can lead to a company's decision to put weaker security policies into practice, which leads to an increased risk of employee fraud."

Johnston said his invitation to the Cape Town information security conference was extended in part because of his current project, but also is the result of his entire body of behavioral security research. Organizers want his thoughts, and those of the other attendees, on the future of information security research in hopes the group can establish a new set of research standards for the coming decade. It is hoped that any new standards will translate to improved workplace processes and make for more secure information systems across a wide swath of industries, Johnston said.

"This invitation is a tremendous honor as I'll have the chance to interface with the giants of my research community," Johnston said. "I've read and studied many of works of the conference participants, and now I have the chance to work with them one-on-one."

   May 20, 2009

Allen Johnston. Download image.

About UAB

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