Impacts of Sustainable Information Technology Capabilities on Information Security Assimilation: The Moderating Effects of Policy—Technology Balance

Abstract

Information security management (ISM) has emerged as a major challenge to sustainable management of companies that highly rely on information technology (IT). To achieve organizational sustainability for managing assets, it is critical for all members of the organization to be assimilated into ISM. An important consideration of ISM assimilation is sustainable IT capabilities. However, so far, there are limited empirical studies on ISM assimilation, particularly those focusing on importance of the organization’s sustainable IT capabilities. Therefore, this study proposes three sustainable IT capabilities (viz., IT infrastructure, IT business spanning capability, and IT proactive stance) with their antecedents based on the existing research, and attempts to empirically prove the impact of these sustainable IT capabilities on ISM assimilation for sustainable management of assets. Additionally, this study proposes policy-to-technology balance as a moderator on the relationships between the three sustainable IT capabilities and ISM assimilation to examine the impact of the non-technical aspect. Responses from 232 upper-management-level employees at various firms currently implementing ISM were collected. Structural equation analysis was run using AMOS 22.0. The results show that the three sustainable IT capabilities were found to have a positive effect on ISM. Furthermore, policy-to-technology balance was found to strengthen the relationship between two IT capabilities (IT infrastructure and IT business spanning capability) and ISM assimilation. However, it emerges that the policy-to-technology balance does not impact IT proactive stance and assimilation. The findings provide meaningful information for future research on sustainable IT capabilities and ISM along with key guidance for the organization to establish a complementary strategy for sustainable assets.