Determining The Influences Of Government Social Media On Employees' Cybersecurity Behaviors: An Application Of Protective Motivation And Cultivation Theories

Abstract

Government social media (GSM) accounts have been recently utilized to inform the public about current information security issues and offer suggestions on how to prevent cybersecurity incidents. However, little is known about how GSM participation influences on users’ behaviors. This study presents novel research that demonstrates the development of information security protective behaviors influenced by GSM participation, information security attitudes, and protection motivation. Both the Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) and the Cultivation Theory (CT) have been employed as the theoretical frameworks and further extended by incorporating compliance attitude, protection motivation, and protective behavior as antecedent factors to comprehensively understand how employees' information security behavior is formed. We conduct an experimental evaluation on a sample of 323 Vietnamese employees who are also followers of GSM to assess the validity of research model and related hypotheses. Our findings show that users’ participation in GSM positively impacts cybersecurity compliance attitude towards employing security measures through perceived vulnerability, and response efficacy, whereas negatively impacts through self-efficacy. Additionally, cybersecurity compliance attitude has stronger impact on employee protective behaviors through information protection motivation than its direct impact. These findings encourage further investigation into GSM management and information security practices and offer practical insights for practitioners.