Outsourcing Deviance: When 3rd Party Technology Innovativeness Becomes a Threat to Information Systems

Abstract

Innovation may not be necessarily be confined to new technologies alone. It may also extend to new ways people are using innovative technologies to interact with information systems. Such interactions may be benevolent, to protect systems, while other system interactions could be malevolent. Anecdotal discourse traces information systems threats emanating from increased malevolent behavior from both the employee of an organization as well as the employee of an outsourced organisation. This study uniquely seeks to share insights to the role the outsourced employee has become from two fronts; firstly that innovative technologies have increasingly enabled malevolent behavior and secondly; with the advent of outsourcing, monovalent activities in information systems has extended to the employees of an outsourced organisation. The study adopts the social bonding theory to explain these insights. A conceptual framework has been developed and tested in order to best represent the security threat posed to information systems by employees of an outsourced organisation. The research is quantitative with hypotheses formulated and tested. Findings suggested that innovative people and technologies has enabled more serious information security threats to be instigated. This is especially the case from the employees of an outsourced organisation.