Organizational Insiders Research Articles

From cyber benign to cyber malicious: unveiling the evolution of insider cyber maliciousness from a stage theory perspective

ABSTRACT Insider cyber maliciousness presents a significant challenge to organizational security. Existing research has focused on identifying determinants of malicious cyber behavior but has not accounted for the progression insiders go through in arriving at the point where they look to harm their employers. This knowledge gap prevents organizations from potentially derailing acts of cyber maliciousness through timely interventions. Based on interviews with a cross-industry sample of organizational insiders, this study adopts a stage theory development approach to explore the progression of insiders from cyber benign to cyber malicious. Stage theories are useful frameworks that help explain how individuals’ perceptions, emotions, and/or behaviors progress through distinct and qualitatively different stages of development. By uncovering the initial, subsequent, and recurring perceptions and emotions that drive insiders to engage in malicious cyber activities, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. Our findings establish a new basis for understanding insider cyber maliciousness, presenting it as an evolutionary progression. As such, our findings also reorient the focus of malicious insider interventions toward strain-reducing or strain-relieving interventions based on the initial, subsequent, or recurring strain experiences.

The role of previous experience in the analysis of the psychological contract and its outcomes during the socialization process: a signalling theory perspective

Psychological contract theory has largely neglected the role of previous experience. In this study, we examine how previous work experience influences outcomes of communication with organizational insiders during organizational socialization among healthcare staff. We develop a model based on signalling theory, within which information acquisition during socialization is associated with psychological contract fulfilment, which is in turn is related to better health, happiness, and social relationships. Moderated mediation analysis based on data collected at entry and three months later confirms indirect effects between three types of information acquisition and three employee outcomes via the mediating role of psychological contract fulfilment. Importantly, these indirect effects are present only for inexperienced newcomers. Our findings build on signalling theory and add to knowledge about how the psychological contract forms during early socialization. They also suggest that organizations should pay particular attention to inducting inexperienced newcomers.

Newcomers building social capital by proactive networking: A signaling perspective.

Social networks can aid newcomers' learning and adjustment and facilitate their performance. However, knowledge about how newcomers build their social networks from the ground up is limited. Extending the socialization literature, we propose a model delineating newcomer proactive networking as the driver of advice ties with peer newcomers, which in turn influence newcomer reputation among higher status organizational insiders. Drawing on signaling theory, we propose that future-oriented newcomers are more likely to engage in proactive networking behaviors, a form of signaling that could help those newcomers build a larger number of peer advice ties. Such initial success may then transmit newcomers' signals to the managerial ranks, affording them a better reputation among managers. In addition, signaling theory suggests that the centrality of a newcomer's immediate supervisor in the managerial advice network can amplify the effect of the newcomer's own signaling actions (i.e., proactive networking behaviors) on their relationships with peers. We tested our hypotheses in two field survey studies. Study 1 found that newcomers higher in future orientation engaged in more proactive networking. Proactive networking helped newcomers form more peer advice ties, which were, in turn, positively related to their reputation among managers. Study 2 found that the supervisor's centrality in the managerial advice network moderated the relationship between newcomer proactive networking and peer advice ties. We discuss the implications of our findings for the newcomer adjustment and signaling theory literatures as well as for socialization practices. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Insider versus outsider workplace mistreatment and their impact on affective ill-being in healthcare professionals: Can personal resources act as buffers?

Workplace stress can negatively impact healthcare providers' professionalism and quality of care. One source of workplace stress is the experience of workplace mistreatment. Drawing on the Job Demands-Resources theory, this study aimed to (a) investigate the impact of mistreatment frequency experienced by healthcare workers from insider sources (i.e. co-workers, supervisors) and outsider sources (i.e. patients, visitors) on affective ill-being and (b) the potential moderating role of trait resilience and trait self-efficacy, as personal resources, in the mistreatment-ill-being relationship. Lagged design. We collected data from 153 Irish healthcare workers between January 2018 and June 2019 via three surveys, separated by 1-week intervals. Personal resources were measured at Time 1, frequency of mistreatment from the two sources was assessed at Time 2 and affective ill-being was assessed at Time 3. We used moderated regression analyses to evaluate the association of mistreatment frequency from the two sources and affective ill-being and the moderating effect of personal resources. Only insider mistreatment frequency was positively related to affective ill-being. Furthermore, the positive impact of insider mistreatment on affective ill-being was moderated by self-efficacy (but not by trait resilience). In contrast to our expectations, the relationship was stronger at high levels compared to low levels of self-efficacy. Mistreatment from co-workers and supervisors is linked to higher levels of affective ill-being. Additionally, healthcare workers with high self-efficacy were more vulnerable to the negative consequences of co-worker and supervisor mistreatment as it impacted their affective ill-being. These findings extend the literature on workplace mistreatment by integrating insider and outsider perpetrators of mistreatment and examining their differential impact on the employees' affective ill-being. It also highlights mistreatment from organizational insiders as a significant factor in the relationship between mistreatment and affective ill-being. No patient or public contribution. WHAT DOES THIS PAPER CONTRIBUTE TO THE WIDER GLOBAL COMMUNITY?: The findings underscore the detrimental impact of workplace mistreatment on the well-being of healthcare professionals. The study findings of higher frequency of insider mistreatment being associated with increased affective ill-being call for action, with line managers and supervisors being critical to achieving respective changes in healthcare workers' environment. The findings have implications for policymakers interested in developing a framework to support healthcare professionals in addressing workplace mistreatment, enabling them to effectively fulfil their role as care providers.

The Association of Demographic Characteristics and Top Management Team Heterogeneity on Hospital Performance

This study aims to show how the demographic characteristics and heterogeneity of the top management team (TMT) associate with hospital’s performance as measured by the balanced scorecard (BSC). The study employs cross-sectional primary data from hospitals in Central Java Indonesia, collected from 242 hospitals. The result shows that the demographic characteristics including age, female, period of experience serving as TMT, level and specialization of education, were not associated with the hospital’s performance. Likewise, the short period of experience in the organization inside or outside of a hospital’s TMT members was not associated with the hospital’s performance. However, TMT’s heterogeneity showed a positive result towards the hospital’s performance. The academic and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Predictors of work-related cyberaggression in a random sample of the Swedish working population

PurposeWith greater numbers of employees using computer-mediated communication, cyberaggression is becoming a more pressing problem for employees and their organizations. However, while a growing body of research illustrates its harmful effects, little is known about the factors that drive its occurrence. The authors therefore sought to identify factors that increase the risk of cyberaggression among employees.Design/methodology/approachA random sample of the Swedish working population (N = 11,556) was surveyed via Statistics Sweden (SCB), which produced a final sample of N = 2,847 (response rate = 24.6%).FindingsLogistic regression analysis showed that emotionally demanding work, availability expectations, low perceived work quality, public sector work and being in a managerial position were related to higher levels of experienced cyberaggression. In addition, exploratory analyses indicated that some of these factors were more strongly related to cyberaggression enacted by organizational insiders compared to organizational outsiders.Originality/valueTogether, the authors' findings suggest that situational factors are stronger antecedents of cyberaggression victimization than personal factors. This has implications for organizations, as practical steps can be taken to reduce cyberaggression among employees.

A Preliminary Investigation of the Relationship Between Gamification and Organizational Socialization Outcomes: Does Gamification Live Up to Its Expectations?

Organizations are increasingly incorporating gamification elements into their activities, but research regarding how this affects newcomers is limited. Successful integration of new employees contributes to optimal functioning in the workplace. However, gamification can be associated with mixed work-related impact. The present cross-sectional study evaluates the relationship between gamification and organizational socialization outcomes. The results of this study show that gamification plays a minimal role in the socialization process. Nevertheless, there are some weak relationships between gamification elements and socialization outcomes. Role clarity, social integration, task mastery, and organizational commitment were positively related to employees’ interactions with gamification elements. However, no tendencies were observed concerning job motivation, turnover intentions, or perceived organizational insider status. Challenges were the most related to socialization outcomes. It has also been observed that competition can have a relatively negative impact on organizational commitment. The study suggests practical value for managers regarding gamification usage.

Change in Newcomers’ Perceived Insider Status Over Time: An Examination of its Relationships with Abusive Supervision and Well-Being

In a time when organizations must cope with an increasingly volatile and spatially dispersed workforce, understanding how to facilitate newcomers’ perceptions of insider status is of both theoretical and practical importance. However, knowledge regarding how and why these desirable perceptions unfold over time during the socialization period is limited. Drawing on affective event theory and feelings-as-information theory, this research derives predictions about the influence of change in newcomers’ perceptions of abusive supervision and change in newcomer negative affect toward their supervisors on change in newcomers’ perceived insider status. Furthermore, considering perceived insider status through the lens of COR theory, its change is expected to have an impact on newcomers’ well-being. To test our predictions, we used a latent growth modeling (LGM) approach to analyze longitudinal data collected from newcomers working in a variety of organizations at four times across a year after organizational entry. Our results reveal a temporal process whereby change in perceptions of abusive supervision influence newcomers’ well-being and demonstrate that changes in newcomers’ negative affect toward the supervisor and in newcomers’ perceived insider status sequentially mediate these relationships. Overall, this research illustrates the temporal dynamics of the socialization process and highlights the key role of supervisors and newcomers’ affect on newcomers’ transition from outsiders to organizational insiders as well as the corresponding impact on their well-being.

Understanding Shadow IT usage intention: a view of the dual-factor model

PurposeDespite the growing concern about security breaches and risks emerging from Shadow IT usage, a type of information security violation committed by organizational insiders, this phenomenon has received little scholarly attention. By integrating the dual-factor theory, unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT) and social control theory, this research aims to examine facilitating and deterring factors of Shadow IT usage intention.Design/methodology/approachAn online survey was performed to obtain data. As this study aims at investigating the behavior of organizational insiders, LinkedIn, an employment-oriented network site, was chosen as the main site to reach the potential respondents.FindingsThe results show that while performance expectancy, effort expectancy and subjective norms considerably impact intention to use Shadow IT, personal norms and sanctions-related factors exert no influence. Besides, an organizational factor of ethical work climate is found to significantly increase individual perceptions of informal controls and formal controls.Originality/valueThis work is the first attempt to extend the generalizability of the dual-factor theory and UTAUT model, which primarily has been utilized in the context of system usage, to the new context of information security. This study is also one of few studies that simultaneously take both organizational and individual factors into consideration and identify its impacts on user's behaviors in the information security context.

Welcome to Our (Divided) Team

Abstract: Since team colleagues and leaders are the first points of contact for organizational newcomers, they could play an important role in newcomers’ socialization success. On the basis of the social identity approach and signaling theory, we expect perceived subgroups in the team and leader–member exchange (LMX), respectively, to predict socialization outcomes (i. e., social integration, organizational attractiveness, intentions to remain). Furthermore, we expect psychological safety to mediate these processes. We conducted a two-wave field study ( N = 56 interns) and an experimental vignette study ( N = 144 students). Results showed perceived subgroups (only in Study 2) and LMX to be related to socialization outcomes. Study 2 showed these relationships to be mediated by psychological safety. Thus, newcomers’ perceptions of their team and leader may be important in determining whether newcomers feel integrated and perceive their organization as attractive to remain in. Human resources practitioners should make organizational insiders aware of their role in newcomer socialization.

Perpetuating Victimization with Efforts to Reduce Human Trafficking: a Call to Action for Massage Therapist Protection.

Human trafficking guised as massage therapy businesses is a highly successful business model that creates independent but related victims beyond the women and girls forced into sex work. Massage clinicians and the massage therapy profession are also negatively impacted by the trafficking massage business model with over 9,000 established illicit massage businesses marketing services alongside professional therapeutic massage businesses. Credential regulation efforts advocated for by various massage-related professional organizations and regulating agencies have fallen short in their purported intentions to protect massage therapists and trafficking victims. Massage industry advocates continue endorsing massage therapy as a branch of health care although health-care workers are not generally considered or treated as sex workers. Sexual harassment research in direct patient care disciplines, such as physical therapy and nursing, points to a high patient initiated incident rate and transdisciplinary, detrimental mental health outcomes for clinicians. Reporting and debriefing instances of sexual harassment inside of health-care organizations, covered by The Civil Rights Act of 1964, promotes a victim-centered perspective to support the well-being of past, current, and pending victims. The massage therapy workforce is comprised of mainly female sole proprietors, creating a double vulnerability in their potential to experience sexual harassment. This threat is compounded by little-to-no protective or supporting systems or networks for massage clinicians. The priorities of professional massage organizations to depend on credentialing and licensing as their primary efforts to fight human trafficking, seems more to perpetuate the current system/expectations, leaving individual massage therapists responsible for fighting or reeducation deviant sexualized behaviors. This critical commentary closes with a call to action aimed at professional massage organizations, regulators, and corporations to protect massage therapists through a unified position, supported in word, policy, and action, against sexual harassment, and unequivocally condemns professional massage devaluation and sexualization in all forms.

OntoSoC: An ontology-based approach to battery pack SoC estimation

A critical aspect of managing lithium-ion battery packs in electric vehicle applications is accurately determining the State of Charge (SoC). There are several methods available to estimate it, including coulomb counting with direct evaluation, Open circuit voltage, kalman filter with adaptive approach, particle flter, as well as fuzzy logic and data-based approach. In this paper, we use the state of charge data already computed by a data-driven approach and combine it with an ontology of a battery pack. The built ontology models the battery pack, taking into account the topology, types of cells and their organization inside. To make an exact estimation, different strategies of balance control of the cells are considered. SWRL rules are used to compute the state of charge of the whole battery pack. Matlab Simulink multi-physics model of a lithium-ion battery is used to provide simulated data for the experiments. The given model is evaluated based on regression metrics showing its performance.

Do newcomers with high political skill benefit more from the formal mentoring program?

PurposePrevious research on the factors influencing mentoring received has primarily focused on protégés' personalities and the similarity between protégés and mentors, whereas understanding on the role of protégés' skills is still limited. Drawing upon the social influence theory, this study investigated how newcomers' political skill influences newcomers' mentoring received and further affects newcomers' socialization outcomes (i.e. person-organization fit perception [P-O fit], performance proficiency and well-being).Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 255 newcomers at a large Chinese information and technology (IT) company using a three-wave, time-lagged design.FindingsThe authors found that newcomers' political skill positively predicted mentoring received, which in turn positively affected newcomers' socialization outcomes.Originality/valueThese findings indicate that political skill enables newcomers to exert social influence on organizational insiders to achieve desirable socialization outcomes, enlarging both the mentoring and political skill literature.

How nurse preceptors provide help to new nurses influences perceived relationship quality

BackgroundIn many hospitals, newly-hired registered nurses (RNs) enter into preceptorships, where they are paired with more experienced nurse preceptors who are responsible for ensuring effective transition to practice. Although high-quality relationships between preceptors and newly-hired nurses facilitate nurses' learning and integration into their medical institutions, preceptors have little guidance for what tactics develop such relationships. ObjectivesTo investigate whether the type of help provided by preceptors (i.e., autonomous or dependent help) influences preceptees' evaluations of relationship quality and psychological safety with their preceptor. Furthermore, we investigate the role of instrumental support and emotional support as explanatory mechanisms. Design/settings/participants/methodsConvenience sampling was used to collect data via a cross-sectional survey of 217 in-patient RNs hired between June 2016 and May 2018 to a magnet hospital within the Southwestern United States. Recently hired nurses evaluated their preceptor's help-giving tendencies, and reported on their perceived support, relationship quality and feelings of psychological safety with their preceptor. ResultsDependent help was positively related to instrumental support. Conversely, autonomous help was positively related to both relationship quality and psychological safety, and these relationships were partially mediated by perceived instrumental support and emotional support. ConclusionFindings illustrate the multiple benefits of autonomous help for encouraging high-quality relationships between preceptors and preceptees. This study identifies autonomous help-giving as a useful tactic for nurse preceptors (or other organizational insiders, such as mentors or supervisors) to establish high-quality relationships with recently hired nurses.

A self-enhancement perspective on organizational socialization: Newcomer core self-evaluations, job crafting, and the role of leaders’ developmental coaching

ABSTRACT Building on a self-enhancement perspective, we connect job crafting and organizational socialization research and propose that, based on their core self-evaluations (CSEs), newcomers use job crafting to create a resource-rich and stimulating work environment and construct a sense of organizational insider status during socialization. We hypothesize a positive reciprocal relationship between job crafting and insider status, and we also propose that leaders’ developmental coaching strengthens the positive effects of CSEs on job crafting and insider status. Survey data were collected from a four-wave sample of 125 newcomers at various organizations in China. The results showed that 1) positive CSEs were associated with more job crafting behaviours as well as higher perceptions of insider status, 2) job crafting and insider status were positively and reciprocally related to one another over time, and 3) leaders’ developmental coaching moderated the positive effect of CSEs on insider status, but not on job crafting, such that the association between CSEs and insider status was positive for higher levels of developmental coaching and non-significant for lower levels of leaders’ developmental coaching. These findings reveal a self-enhancement process during organizational socialization and the important role of leaders’ developmental coaching in such a process.

Going Beyond Deterrence: A Middle-Range Theory of Motives and Controls for Insider Computer Abuse

Reports indicate that employees are willing to share sensitive information under certain circumstances, and one-third to half of security breaches are tied to insiders. These statistics reveal that organizational security efforts, which most often rely on deterrence-based sanctions to address the insider threats to information security, are insufficient. Thus, insiders’ computer abuse (ICA)—unauthorized and deliberate misuse of organizational information resources by organizational insiders—remains a significant issue for industry. We present a motive–control theory of ICA that distinguishes among instrumental and expressive motives and internal and external controls. Specifically, we show that organizational deterrents (e.g., sanctions) do not create motives for ICA, but weaken existing motives (e.g., financial benefits). Conversely, financial benefits and psychological contract violations create motives to perform ICA, and insiders’ self-control diminishes the influence of these motives. The implications for practice are threefold: (1) organizations should make efforts to reduce psychological contract breach for employees by increasing the congruence between expectations and reality to reduce expressive motives for ICA; (2) organizations should seek maintain personnel with adequate self-control to diminish the impact of harmful ICA motives should they arise; and (3) organizations should develop targeted sanctions for committing ICA to control the harmful influence of financial motives.

서비스업 조직원의 긍정심리자본이 업무 스트레스를 통해 정보보안 정책저항에 미치는 영향: 커뮤니케이션과 피드백의 조절효과

As information threat management by organizational insiders is emphasized at the national level, information security(IS) policies and technology investments are increasingly centered on the financial industry. However, most service industries are still passive in internal IS management. This study points out that strict IS policies for insiders in the service industry can be expressed as IS policy resistance through role stress and confirms that individual positive psychological capital, organizational communication, and feedback support can reduce IS policy resistance. We surveyed workers in the service industry to which IS policies were applied and conducted path analysis by applying structural equation modeling to 342 samples. We confirmed that IS role stress had a partial mediating effect on the relationship between positive psychological capital and IS policy resistance. And it was confirmed that feedback moderated the relationship between positive psychological capital and IS policy resistance. We presented the individual and organizational preconditions to reduce the IS policy resistance of service industry insiders. As a result, our study provides a strategic direction for people-oriented service organizations to pursue to achieve the level of internal IS.

Review of insider and insider threat detection in the organizations

Aim: One of the major threats in cyber security is the insider threat. Most of the organizations are unaware of the insider threats. The organizational insiders like employees, system administrators and third party contractors have secret information related to the organizations. Protecting such secret information is very crucial to safeguard the organizational financial and reputational losses. Most of the authorized employees have access to confidential data when it bypasses the security it may lead to huge loss to the organization. Identifying and preventing the insider threat is a major challenge in any organization to safeguard it from the malicious acts of the insiders. This research study is aim at identifying the insider threat involved in any organization and the ways to protect these threat.Methodology: This paper reviews the research done on the insider threat classifying the research into three categories, the first one is about the insiders - representing types of insiders, motivation, insider access, methods used by insiders, insider profiling and levels of insiders, the second one is about the threat detection methods - describing the methodology, techniques, the datasets used to implement the different insider threat detection techniques and the various analyzed behavior of the user, the third one is insider threat analysis representing various evaluation metrics used.Findings: In the current digital era, one of the dangerous threats to organizations is due to the insiders. Most of the organizations are facingissues with insider threats since the global changes in the business environment. Excessive use of cloud and BYOD concepts to work fromhome was one of the major reason to increase the insider threat since 2019.Implications/Novel Contribution: Some of the recommendations for upcoming research are to use the hybrid solution to develop theeffective models to detect the insider threats, to enhance threat detection methods, and evaluate the performance of the existing methods usingthe live dataset.

조직공정성과 신뢰가 지식관리 관련 갈등 및 지식축적에 미치는 영향: 지식 영역성의 조절효과 분석

As effective management of individualized knowledge within an organization is recognized as a core factor in achieving sustainable performance, organizations are increasing their investment in knowledge management. However, as failure cases related to knowledge management to occur, active participation of organizational insiders is required. The purpose of this study is to suggest conflicts, which are a negative motivating factor that affects knowledge hoarding, to confirm the moderating effect of knowledge territoriality, and to suggest the direction of organizational efforts to reduce conflicts. In this study, the research hypothesis was presented through precedent research in the field of knowledge management and stress, and samples were obtained by conducting an online questionnaire to employees of organizations that introduced knowledge management policies by applying a questionnaire technique. And, the research hypothesis was verified through structural equation modeling. As a result of the analysis, role conflict and relationship conflict had a positive effect on knowledge hoarding, and knowledge territoriality strengthened the relationship between the two factors. And, organization justice and organization trust reduced individual conflicts within the organization. This study suggests a direction to reduce the negative behaviors of individuals toward knowledge management policies.

Newcomers as unwitting victims? Examining department leaders' denial of information support and team leaders' resentment during organizational socialization

SummaryNewcomers depend on organizational insiders to successfully adjust to their organization, with their direct team leaders playing an important role in facilitating their assimilation during organizational socialization. However, in certain circumstances, team leaders may refrain from supporting newcomers, based on their experiences from before newcomers joined the organization. The purpose of this study is to examine team leaders' preexisting perception of deprivation and resentment toward their department leaders as factors that may influence the extent to which they provide support to newcomers. Drawing on relative deprivation theory, we propose that the denial of task‐related information to team leaders by their department leaders before newcomers join the organization triggers resentment in team leaders. We further propose that team leaders' preexisting resentment toward their department leaders influences their level of support to newcomers. We tested our hypotheses through data collected from team leaders before newcomers joined their organization and matched data collected from team leaders and newcomers after the latter joined the company. The results indicate that team leaders' preexisting experience of resentment toward their department leaders influences the support they provide to newcomers, an uninvolved target.