Ensuring Employees' IT Compliance: Carrot or Stick?

Author List: Liang, Huigang; Xue, Yajiong; Wu, Liansheng;
Information Systems Research, 2013, Volume 24, Issue 2, Page 279-294.
With reward (carrot) and punishment (stick) widely applied by organizations to regulate mandatory IT usage, it is imperative to understand how these incentives influence employee compliance behavior. Drawing upon control theory and regulatory focus theory, this study investigates the relationships among regulatory focus, reward, punishment, and compliance behavior in mandatory IT settings. Survey data were collected from 186 employees in companies where enterprise resource planning (ERP) compliance was mandated. Analyses reveal that punishment expectancy is a strong determinant of compliance behavior, whereas the main effect of reward expectancy is not significant. Moreover, the relationship between reward expectancy and compliance behavior is moderated by promotion focus and the relationship between punishment expectancy and compliance behavior is moderated by prevention focus. This study provides an in-depth understanding of reward and punishment in mandatory IT settings and suggests that regulatory focus plays an important role in affecting employees' compliance with organizational controls.
Keywords: compliance; organizational control; prevention focus; promotion focus; punishment; regulatory focus; reward
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#92 0.614 equity conventional punishment justice wisdom focus behavior fairness compliance suggest theory significant certainty misuse reward settings behavioral mandatory drawing widely
#173 0.110 effect impact affect results positive effects direct findings influence important positively model data suggest test factors negative affects significant relationship
#298 0.093 job employees satisfaction work role turnover employee organizations organizational information ambiguity characteristics personnel stress professionals conflict organization intention variables systems
#251 0.065 implementation erp enterprise systems resource planning outcomes support business associated understanding benefits implemented advice key implementing scope functional post-implementation implementations
#276 0.055 satisfaction information systems study characteristics data results using user related field survey empirical quality hypotheses important success various indicate tested