Espoused cultural values as antecedents of individuals’ threat and coping appraisal toward protective information technologies: Study of U.S. and Ghana

Abstract

Evidence of cyber activities in developing nations has renewed discourse on users’ intention to protect information in the global economy. We present a context theorization in which espoused individualism–collectivism and uncertainty avoidance are posited as antecedents to an individual’s threat and coping appraisal toward protecting information. We tested our model with data from the United States and Ghana, countries that generally differ on cultural values. Individualism–collectivism and uncertainty avoidance significantly affect threat and coping appraisals with uncertainty avoidance demonstrating slightly stronger effect. Path estimate comparisons between Ghana and the United States show significant differences for all of the structural paths.