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Information security has increasingly been in the headlines as data breaches continue to occur at alarming rates. This paper aims to propose an Information Security Preparedness Model that was developed to examine how SME executives’ perceptions of security importance, implementation challenges and external influences impact their awareness and commitment to security preparedness.

Funded by the Department of Justice, a national survey of SME executives’ perceptions of information security preparedness was conducted. Using PLS-SEM, the survey responses were used to test the proposed Information Security Preparedness Model.

The results indicate that as perceptions of security importance and external influences increase, SME executives’ awareness and commitment to information security also increases. In addition, as implementation challenges increase, awareness and commitment to information security decreases. Finally, as security importance and awareness and commitment to information security increases, executives’ perception of security preparedness also increases.

Executive perceptions of information security were measured and not the actual level of security. Further research that examines the agreement between executive perceptions and the true state of information security within the organization is warranted.

Prior information security studies using Roger’s (1975, 1983) Protection Motivation Theory have produced mixed results. This paper develops and tests the Information Security Preparedness Model to more fully explain SME executive’s perceptions of information security.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the differences in preferred supplier choice criteria between food purchasing agents who focus on supplier security and those that do not. Specifically, this research determines the relationship between purchasing agents’ supplier security preferences and their preferences for product quality, delivery reliability, price, and supplier location. The influence of international sourcing on demand for increased supplier security is also explored.

Choice-based conjoint analysis with hierarchical Bayes (HB) estimation and t-tests are used to assess and compare the utility food purchasing managers derive from different supplier attributes.

Purchasing managers that place a higher priority on security when choosing suppliers were willing to pay suppliers a higher price and receive lower levels of delivery reliability in return for higher security but placed less emphasis on suppliers’ product quality. Firms that source internationally do not have a significantly greater preference for advanced supplier security. However, purchasing managers that value supplier security were more likely to source internationally, potentially indicating that security allows for global sourcing by mitigating the increased vulnerability inherent to sourcing abroad.

This research was limited by its focus on the food industry and a relatively small sample size.

This work illustrated that food purchasing managers can be segmented by the emphasis they place on security. Food industry managers will find results useful in formulating their future service offerings with respect to security and other supplier choice criteria.

This is one of few works investigating security as a supplier choice criterion and utilizing HB estimation of choice-based conjoint data.

Despite its widely acknowledged importance, the information security policy has not, to date, been the subject of explicit, empirical scrutiny, in the academic literature. To help fill this gap an exploratory research project was initiated that sought to investigate the uptake, content, dissemination and impact of information security policies. To this end, a questionnaire was mailed to senior IS executives, in large UK‐based organizations, and 208 valid responses were received. The results of this research have indicated that, while policies are now fairly common, at least amongst the sample, there is still a high degree of variety in terms of their content and dissemination.

This paper examines adolescent’ money attitudes in the USA and France. It introduces and validates an 18-item scale for assessing adolescent money attitudes, explores the symbolic values that American and French teens attach to money, identifies the major segments of teens based on their attitudes toward money and assesses the importance that these groups place on price, novelty and brand name.

Twenty-eight in-depth interviews were initially conducted to explore adolescent’ money attitudes, assist in the development of measures and provide a context for interpreting subsequent results. Exploratory factor analysis (among 90 French and 70 American adolescents), followed by confirmatory factor analysis (among 332 French and 273 American adolescents) indicated that six dimensions captured money meanings. These dimensions were used in a subsequent cluster analysis to group teens into segments.

Six dimensions (worry, achievement, status, security, budget and evil) captured teenage money attitudes among French and American adolescents. A cluster analysis based on these dimensions yielded three groups: no worries, success and security. These three groups varied in their attitudes toward money and the importance that they placed on price, brand and novelty in purchasing.

This study provides measures for assessing adolescent money meanings and presents a preliminary segmentation of USA and French adolescents based on their attitudes toward money.

The results explore the impact of money attitudes on adolescent consumption preferences, demonstrate the utility of measuring adolescent’ money attitudes and segmenting adolescents based on these attitudes and emphasize the importance of both cultural and individual differences.

Young adults are living and working in uncertain economic climates and increasingly exposed to precarious work. Are preferences for job security and actual job stability a result of proximal conditions, or do experiences in adolescence also play a role? The adolescent’s environment and experiences may help explain differences in preferences with regards to stable work, as well as work outcomes in early adulthood.

In this chapter, I use data from the Youth Development Study (YDS) to test three facets of the adolescent experience between ages 14 and 18 – parental work and educational characteristics, adolescents’ academic achievement, and youth employment – as factors shaping (1) respondents’ preferences for stable employment, (2) respondents’ perceived job insecurity, and (3) respondents’ likelihood of being in nonstandard work in early adulthood, age 31–32, approximately 15 years later.

Adolescent experiences and environments are related to young adults’ preferences for stable employment, likelihood of being in nonstandard work, and likelihood of reporting job insecurity in early adulthood, suggesting the significance of early life experiences as well as the importance of intergenerational transmission processes for the early adult years.

This study points to the important role of adolescent experiences in initiating a trajectory of work preferences and attainment.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the changes of life domains centrality (work, family, leisure, community and religion) and of work goals preferences (interest, good pay, interpersonal relations, job security, etc.) in Israel, according to gender, between 1981 and 2006.

This is a follow‐up research regarding “meaning of work” studies, held in 1981 and 1993. The participants constitute representative samples of the Israeli labor force in 1981, 1993 and 2006.

While in the past, men showed a higher work centrality than women, in 2006 no traditional gender differences were found in work centrality; however, family centrality, as in the past, was higher among women than among men. The most meaningful change among men and women was regarding “job security”, and this goal has become more and more important throughout the 25 years of the study.

The transformation of men's and women's work values reflect the economic and social changes and those changes are influenced mainly by governmental decisions, for better or for worse. The findings disclose an increased potential for work‐family conflict among Israeli women in the last decade and this conflict can be reduced by economic and social policy.

This unique cross‐sectional study explores the changes in the importance of life domains and work goals among men and women over the course of time. Moreover, the study explains the causes for the major trends by social, economical and political factors.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how international tourists’ cosmopolitan values change due to the restraining fear of terrorism, and how this change affects their worldview, destination perception and travel preferences.

In-depth interviews were conducted with international travellers from all five continents to pinpoint the universal shifts in cosmopolitan values, specifically regarding risk perception in the face of terrorism.

Tourists’ personal values are changing due to the increased risk of terrorism (or the perception of it), which prompts international travellers to act less on their desire for stimulation and more for their need for security when travelling. Just as any change in values tends to be relatively permanent, this value shift might have long-term consequences for the entire tourism industry.

Terrorism risk perception and its retraining effect regarding willingness to travel were established to be significant and universal. However, this study suggests that the strength of the travellers’ cosmopolitan orientation influences the extent terrorism risk is acted upon. Results indicate that the higher the travellers’ cosmopolitan conviction is, the less significantly they seem to be affected by the fear of terrorism.

The study offers cues on how managers and policy makers can enhance destination image that keeps up with the current realities of global tourism in the face of terrorism, and highlights a promising market segment, strongly cosmopolitan travellers who are less concerned with potential travel risks and react less negatively in troubled times.

Most of the previous studies considered tourists’ cosmopolitanism as a stable orientation rather than a context-specific state. This study addresses this gap by exploring how resilient the tourists’ cosmopolitan desire for openness and freedom is under the risk perception of terrorism, and what effect the fear of terrorism has on their travel habits.

Looks at the growth and potential of the Internet in relation to security issues. Presently, lack of security is perceived as a major roadblock to doing business on‐line. Risks of system corruption, fraud, theft and viruses point companies to the need for enhanced security. Investigates the importance of securing a company’s systems, its individual users, and its commercial transactions, and provides a checklist along with a brief discussion of available protection measures for these three primary security concerns.

The aim of this paper is to address three broad questions: Are preferences for branding attributes similar for entry and for retention? Are there generational and career stage differences in one's entry and exit priorities? How is current satisfaction with brand image attributes related to overall commitment, satisfaction and retention?

This paper reports on the results of a survey of 144 workers employed at 37 day care centers in a medium sized Canadian city.

Although the level of respondents' priorities for entry and exit differed, most priorities remained in the same order. However, their perspectives were more disaggregated for entry than for exit, where branding attributes were more strongly correlated. Consistent with the exploration stage of career development, younger people planned to stay a shorter length of time with a particular center.

This study includes only child care workers in a small geographic region. Future research should be undertaken in larger scale firms that also offer greater heterogeneity in professions as well as career options. Also, a longitudinal study that follows new entrants for several years, using both instrumental and symbolic measures, would provide information on what attracted individuals and what influenced their intention to leave.

Although there were few differences by age or career stage, the variation within each factor suggests that a brand image may need to be relatively broad to accommodate diversity. HR practitioners can use the practice symbolic pattern to build and maintain a culture that is attractive to present and prospective employees. The opposite symbolic practice pattern may help current employees understand reasons for new practices.

Organizations face significant challenges in designing programs for recruitment and retention. This study considers how employees' to two questions – “why do people enter the organization” and “why do people remain?” – may differ.

The chapter presents an analysis of the decision-making process of leaders on issues of nuclear armament and nuclear disarmament, through four case studies. The first, pertaining armament, is South Africa, with a focus on Pieter Willem Botha, former prime minister and president of South Africa. The second deals with former Libyan President Muammar Gaddafi’s nuclear armament decision. The third case study investigates the decision of former president of South Africa, F. W. De Klerk, on nuclear disarmament. The fourth and final case study uncovers Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s nuclear disarmament decision.

Using the Applied Decision Analysis (ADA) method historical decisions have been analyzed in this chapter for the purpose of identifying each leader’s ‘decision code’. Specifically, were these decisions based on rational calculations or were they influenced more by cognitive decision processes?

By revealing a ‘decision code’ using a reverse engineering of the decision processes, I conclude that the three leaders placed high importance on security and geopolitics. By analyzing different dimensions and processes that impacted their decision processes, it is evident that while armament decision utilizes the poliheuristic decision rule, disarmament decisions abide by rational calculations.