Abstract As security breaches in organisations are on the rise, developing an understanding of factors enabling and preventing such breaches is crucial. Even though previous studies have examined organisational aspects of information security, not much focus has been placed on human factors. In the present work we examined the tendency to morally disengage (MD), information security awareness (ISA), and counterproductive work behaviours (CWB), in a sample of 718 employees who used computers on daily basis, in order to establish predictors of CWB and the behavioural outcomes of ISA. The results showed that the propensity to morally disengage plays an important role in ISA, particularly the aspect of diffusion of responsibility. Secondly, ISA knowledge and ISA attitude, as expected, were part of a mediating mechanism underlying the relationship between MD and ISA behaviours, as well as MD and CWB. This demonstrates that ISA and CWB constructs overlap to a certain degree, and thus affecting one, should have effects also on the other. Targeted interventions need to consider ways of improving ISA knowledge and attitudes, as well as employees’ sense of responsibility for the information they work with.

中文翻译：

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探索道德脱离和适得其反的工作行为在信息安全意识中的作用。

摘要 随着组织中安全漏洞的增加，了解促成和防止此类漏洞的因素至关重要。尽管之前的研究已经研究了信息安全的组织方面，但并没有过多关注人为因素。在目前的工作中，我们在 718 名每天使用计算机的员工的样本中检查了道德脱离 (MD)、信息安全意识 (ISA) 和适得其反的工作行为 (CWB) 的趋势，以建立 CWB 的预测因子以及 ISA 的行为结果。结果表明，道德脱离倾向在 ISA 中起着重要作用，特别是在责任分散方面。其次，ISA知识和ISA态度，正如预期的那样，是 MD 和 ISA 行为以及 MD 和 CWB 之间关系的中介机制的一部分。这表明 ISA 和 CWB 结构在一定程度上重叠，因此影响一个，也应该影响另一个。有针对性的干预需要考虑提高 ISA 知识和态度的方法，以及员工对所使用信息的责任感。