Reigning in the Remote Employee: Applying Social Learning Theory to Explain Information Security Policy Compliance Attitudes

In an era of heightened sensitivity to issues of privacy or information security, concerns over policy compliance by all employees is of great importance. Many organizations are increasing the resources devoted to compliance training and efforts to inform employees of proper compliance behavior. Compliance by remote employees, however, is especially challenging as they are often not privy to the same resources provided of their in-house counterparts. Through a survey of over 500 remote and in-house employees, this study reveals factors that contribute to policy compliance and the discrepancies that exist between remote and in-house employees toward that goal. The findings reveal compliance intentions are significantly impacted by levels of awareness and self-efficacy, which are themselves influenced by the external cues of situational support, verbal persuasion, and vicarious experience. Further the findings suggest that there are significant differences in the awareness, self-efficacy, and compliance intention levels of remote and in-house employees.