Adoption of Information Security as Decision-making under Uncertainty: A Behavioural Economics Approach

In this study, we consider the question of adoption of information security technologies at individual level as a problem of decision-making under uncertainty and analyse it using a behavioural economics approach. We highlight the importance of the security adoption question for individuals outside of the organizational setting. In our model, we assume that an individual faces two sources of uncertainty, namely, environmental uncertainty and product uncertainty. An experiment is proposed to derive the utility function by testing personal perceptions toward varying levels of environmental and product uncertainties. Expected results are derived analytically and future research directions are discussed.