Understanding Knowledge Leakage & BYOD (Bring Your Own Device): A Mobile Worker Perspective

Knowledge sharing drives innovation and the opportunity to develop a sustainable competitive advantage. However, in the extant knowledge management and information security literature, leakage from sharing activities is neglected. The risk of knowledge leakage is exacerbated with the pervasive use of mobile devices and the adoption of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). Thus, this research-in-progress paper examines the role of the behaviour of mobile workers that engage in accidental knowledge leakage through the use of BYOD. We use the Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (DTPB) to explain the causes behind this phenomenon and how it negatively impacts organization’s competitive advantage. The contributions of this study are the following. First, it posits that the reasons of knowledge leakage by mobile workers through BYOD can be explained using DTPB. Second, the paper proposes a conceptual framework for research based on DTPB constructs whilst adding other variables such as BYOD and mobile device usage context. Finally, the conceptual study outlines the potential contributions and implications of this research.