Understanding Contextual Factors of Bring Your Own Device and Employee Information Security Behaviors from the Work-Life Domain Perspective

Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is no longer the exception, but rather the norm. Most prior research on employees’ compliance with organizational security policies has been primarily conducted with the assumption that work takes place in a specified workplace, not remotely. However, due to advances in technology, almost every employee brings his or her own device(s) to work. Further, particularly as a result of the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic, remote working has become very popular, with many employees using their own devices for work- related activities. BYOD brings new challenges in ensuring employees’ compliance with information security rules and policies by creating a gray area between the work and life domains as it diminishes the boundaries that separate them and thus affects employees’ perception of them. As yet, little is known about how BYOD changes individuals’ perception of work-life domains and how such perception may subsequently affect their compliance behavior. Building on prior research on information security behaviors and work-life domain management, this thesis investigates the possible effects of BYOD on employees’ compliance behavior through the changes it brings about in their work-life domain perspective. It extends existing border theory by identifying and empirically validating new border marking factors— namely, device ownership and data sensitivity—in employees’ interpretation of their work and life domains. Subsequently, protection motivation theory, a theory widely used in explaining employees’ compliance behavior, was used to examine why and how the perception of work- life domains is relevant and necessary to consider in examining employees’ intention to comply with information security policies.