Job Quitters, Information Security Awareness, and Knowledge Management Strategies

Information security culture plays a crucial role in improving employees’ security awareness within a firm. Knowledge management initiatives can help transform culturally unfit workers into those who will possess the necessary level of security awareness and are aligned with a firm’s information security culture. This research analytically models and studies the best knowledge management performance quotient (KMPQ) in a firm to convert workers who are unfit into those who fit with its security culture in order to improve the firm’s organizational level of security awareness (OLSA) and maximize its total payoff. When the potential security threat comes from all the workers who depart the firm, either voluntarily or involuntarily, findings in this study suggest that the firm should implement full knowledge management initiatives to achieve a KMPQ as high as possible if the loss from the security threat is less than a specific threshold level. This study further differentiates three sources of a security threat (voluntary unfit quitters, voluntary fit quitters, and involuntary quitters), and assesses the firm’s best KMPQ accordingly. In addition, this article illustrates the implementation process of the firm’s knowledge management strategies based on the study’s decision framework. This research provides valuable guidance for practitioners to effectively implement knowledge management strategies to build a successful information security culture within organizations.