Expanding Views of Technology Acceptance: Seeking Factors Explaining Security Control Adoption

This research in progress essay reviews the existing technology acceptance literature to evaluate its ability to predict the adoption of network security controls. We suggest that an expanded view of current technology acceptance theory may be required to adequately address the complex variables that influence the acceptance of security controls. An important differentiator is that while traditional technology adoption models address potential gains in a positive sense, security control adoption results in the avoidance of a potential harm. This leads to consideration of the security IT artifact using a Herzberg-like two-factor model and the investigation of models outside traditional IT research, such as Protection Motivation Theory. These models offer potentially valuable alternatives by recognizing the importance of factors such as perceived vulnerability and perceived threat severity that are not considered in current technology acceptance literature.