The impact of technostress creators on academics’ cybersecurity fatigue in South Africa

Abstract

The intention of this study is to examine from a behavioral perspective, how technostress impacts on academics’ cybersecurity compliance in universities where the protection of information systems has become of vital importance due to increased dependency for academic business. The authors proposed a research framework informed by the Technostress Creators’ Model and the Theory of Planned Behavior that cybersecurity fatigue moderates compliance intention. Data collected through a closed ended online survey questionnaire from 210 academics in one public university in South Africa was analyzed using descriptive statistics and the proposed model was evaluated through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results from empirical investigation reveal that technostress creators of techno-complexity, techno-invasion and techno-insecurity positively influence cybersecurity fatigue. However, techno-uncertainty and techno-overload demonstrated a negative influence on cybersecurity fatigue. Furthermore, results revealed moderation of cybersecurity training and awareness on cybersecurity fatigue. This paper aims to improve cybersecurity compliance by academics in universities by understanding the effect of technostress and cyber fatigue on cybersecurity compliance behavior. The study is of significance to universities management, especially academics information communication technologies skills development and workload administration, as they are informed on how to better develop initiatives and strategies for improved cybersecurity compliance.