Employee Moral Disengagement in Response to Stressful Information Security Requirements: A Methodological Replication of a Coping-Based Model

The purpose of this study is to methodologically replicate the model presented by D’Arcy et al. (2014) using a new sampling frame that consists of employees in a single organization – a large academic institution in Canada (N = 150). This is in contrast to the original study, which used a large, demographically diverse sample of online panel respondents that spanned multiple organizations and industries. Our replication results confirm the results of the original study, and in doing so, support the theoretical position that security-related stress induces moral disengagement of information security policy (ISP) violations, which in turn increases ISP violation intention. The findings also indirectly support the viability of online panel respondents for studies of employees’ security-related intentions. Having established the robustness of the D’Arcy et al. (2014) model across two sampling frames, we recommend future conceptual replications that employ alternate measures of security-related stress and more rigorous research designs that capture the relationships between security-related stress, moral disengagement, and ISP violations.