The Role of Penalties, Pressures and Perceived Effectiveness: A Replication Study of Generation Z's Information Security Behaviors

Effective management of information security remains of paramount importance. While end users are often the focus in terms of policy compliance, Generation Z's behaviors in information security have not received much interest. Monitoring and influencing Generation Z behaviors poses substantial challenges in information security. In this study, we perform a methodological replication of Herath and Rao’s (2009) theoretical model to examine the influence of penalties, external pressures, and perceived effectiveness in the context of Generation Z’s adherence to information security policies. Our research draws on survey responses collected from 224 Generation Z individuals, with our findings underscoring that the influence of intrinsic and extrinsic motivators may be contextually dependent. For example, unlike Herath and Rao, we found that extrinsic motivation factors related to penalties were both insignificant for Generation Z. But, similar to the original study, we found that extrinsic motivators related to social pressure were highly significant among Generation Z. Further, in contrast to the original study, the role of intrinsic motivation was not significant, supporting the assertion that while intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are both crucial elements, they seem to have a differing role depending on the generational context being examined.