Abstract Users’ information systems (IS) security behavior continuously draws attentions from scholars and practitioners. While previous studies usually focused on one context (e.g., employees’ compliance with IS security policies in an organizational context), little research has focused on the possible explanations for users’ IS security behavior if the context changes. To address this gap, this dissertation discusses the role of context in IS security behavior research. An analysis of the differences between the organizational context and the home context suggests a need to study users’ IS security behavior solely in a specific context, such as home. This study provides guidelines for applying and developing contextualized theories in IS security behavior research. Based on the guidelines, this dissertation includes two empirical studies. First, drawing on rational choice theory, it compares specific IS security behavior in two contexts: the work context (N = 210) and the personal context (N = 202). Second, drawing on stewardship theory, this dissertation develops a contextualized theory explaining employees’ IS security risk-taking behavior in the organizational context (N = 170). The findings of this dissertation show different explanations for users’ IS security behavior in different contexts and highlight the importance of taking context into account when doing IS security behavior research. The results of each empirical study provide both theoretical contributions to research as well as actionable advice to practice. / Tiivistelmä Tietokoneenkäyttäjien tietoturvakäyttäytyminen on jatkuvan kiinnostuksen kohteena niin tutkijoiden kuin käytännön ammatinharjoittajienkin keskuudessa. Aiempi tutkimus on keskittynyt tarkastelemaan tietoturvakäyttäytymistä yleensä yhdessä kontekstissa (esim. työntekijöiden tietoturvaohjeiden noudattaminen organisaatiokontekstissa), kun taas vähemmälle huomiolle on jäänyt se, kuinka kontekstin muuttuminen selittää tietoturvakäyttäytymistä. Tämä väitöskirja vastaa kyseiseen ongelmaan, sillä se käsittelee kontekstin roolia tietoturvakäyttäytymistutkimuksessa. Tutkimuksessa analysoidaan organisaatiokontekstin ja kotikontekstin eroja. Analyysi osoittaa, että on tarpeellista tutkia tietokoneen käyttäjien tietoturvakäyttäytymistä tietyissä konteksteissa, kuten esimerkiksi kotikontekstissa. Tutkimus tarjoaa ohjeita siihen, kuinka kontekstisidonnaisia teorioita sovelletaan ja kehitetään tietoturvakäyttäytymistutkimuksessa. Väitöskirja sisältää 2 empiiristä tutkimusta, jotka pohjautuvat edellä mainittuihin ohjeisiin. Ensimmäisessä vaiheessa tutkimuksessa sovelletaan rational choice -teoriaa, jonka pohjalta vertaillaan tiettyä tietoturvakäyttäytymistyyppiä 2 kontekstissa: työkonteksti<br clear="none"/> (N = 210) ja henkilökohtaisen käytön konteksti (N = 202). Toiseksi, tutkimus soveltaa stewardship -teoriaa ja kehittää siihen pohjautuen kontekstisidonnaisen teorian, joka selittää organisaation työntekijöiden käyttäytymistä liittyen tietoturvariskin ottamiseen<br clear="none"/> (N = 170). Väitöskirjan tutkimustulokset esittävät erilaisia selityksiä tietokoneen käyttäjien tie-toturvakäyttäytymiselle eri konteksteissa. Tutkimus korostaa sitä, kuinka tärkeää on ottaa konteksti huomioon tutkittaessa tietoturvakäyttäytymistä. Kummankin empiirisen tutkimuksen tulokset tarjoavat teoreettisen kontribuution lisäksi käytännöllisiä neuvoja tietoturvan toteuttamiseen.

The increasing dependence of modern societies, industries, and individuals on information technology and computer networks renders them ever more vulnerable to attacks on critical IT infrastructures. While the societal threat posed by hackers and other types of cyber-criminals has been growing significantly in the last decade, main-stream criminology has only recently begun to realize the significance of this threat. Cyber-criminology is slowly emerging as a subfield of criminological study and has yet to overcome many of the problems other areas of criminological research have already mastered. Aside from substantial methodological and theoretical problems, cyber-criminology currently also suffers from the scarcity of available data. As a result, scientific answers to crucial questions, such as who exactly the attackers are and why they engage in hacking activities, remain largely fragmentary. The present study begins to fill this remaining gap in the literature. It examines survey data about hackers, their involvement in hacking, their motivations to hack, and their hacking careers. The data for this study was collected during a large hacking convention in Washington D.C. in February 2008. The theoretical framework guiding the analyses is the rational choice perspective (Clarke & Cornish, 1985). Several hypotheses about hackers are derived from the theory and some of its models are transposed into the context of hackers. Results suggest that the rational choice perspective is a viable theory when applied to cyber-criminals. Findings also demonstrate that the creation of more effective countermeasures requires adjustments to our understanding of who hackers really are and why they hack.

Denna kandidatuppsats bemöter frågan om väljarbeteende i allmänna val; huruvida strategiskt röstande (taktikröstning) är ett förekommande fenomen i val till svenska kommunfullmäktige eller ej och i så fall vilka faktorer som ligger bakom strategiskt röstande. En underförstådd tes bakom väljarbeteende är att röstberättigade röstar i enlighet med deras partipreferens utifrån en rad underliggande orsaker, såsom sakpolitik, partifärg, ideologi och organisationsstruktur. Dock har viss forskning uppstått som tyder på att somliga väljare agerar konsekvent och röstar utifrån bästa möjliga utdelning (payoff), snarare än direkta skäl. Dessa indirekta skäl kan röra sig om partiernas valallianser med övriga partier, något som alltid inte uppskattas av väljarna. Under senare halvan av 1900-talet har studier kring väljarbeteende uppmärksammats av statsvetare och beteendevetare. En av de mest omnämnda publikationerna inom vetenskapen är undertecknad den amerikanska ekonomen Anthony Downs som genom sin bok An Economic Theory of Democracy (1957) har undersökt relationen mellan politiska kandidater och väljare. Uppsatsen kommer presentera för läsaren tidigare studier inom detta specifika forskningsområde samt en nutidshistorisk överblick i s.k. oheliga allianser. Resultatet kommer visa på partisamverkans tydliggjorda betydelse i hur kommunmedborgarna röstar i allmänna val.

Choices made in highly uncertain settings problematise the concept of rationality in decisions-making. Notably, educational choices are conducted on uncertain ground as future prospects in labour markets are always risky. Educational choices should also correspond to values of self-actualisation – derived from ideologies of High modernity (individualisation) –which in turn makes the decision even harder. Many studies have researched risk-taking and economic risk assessments in educational choices. Studies have also shown the effects of individualisation and capitalisation in modern societies. However, few studies on education take both economic and self-developing values into consideration, and even fewer examine the rationality in self-actualisation. This dissertation analyses rationality derived from social circumstances – in this case academia – in order to explain how students make their educational decisions and how they are affected by academic settings during their studies. To investigate this, a survey was constructed and sent to students. Statistical (correlation; group comparisons) and qualitative content analysis was used to interpret the data. The findings suggest that rationality in educational decisions mainly derives from self-interest, but also that academic settings promote this approach. This implicates that uncertainty is dealt with in social environments, and that rationality is essentially a social construction built and harboured within institutional settings.

The thesis considers the career of the Student Christian Movement (SCM) which was founded in 1892 to promote missions and to recruit students for missionary work. As it grew, the SCM extended its operations to the founding and servicing of Christian Unions in colleges and progressively abandoned its evangelical roots and come to play a major part in the development of liberalism and ecumenism. In the nineteen sixties it became more radical than liberal and developed an interest in Marxism and alternative life styles. The career of the conservative evangelical Inter-Varsity Fellowship (IVF), formed as a result of a number of schisms from SCM, is also charted. These two movement organisations are considered in the light of ideas derived from the sociology of social movements. In the Introduction a brief critical account of various dominant theories of social movement origination is presented and elements of an alternative, voluntaristic, and essentially processual account are advanced. The careers of SCM and IVF are used to suggest correctives to a number of theoretical insights that have been developed on the basis of an exaggeration of the division between stable society and social movement. Particular topics dealt with include the growth and spread of social movements, goal transformation, schism and decline. It is argued that the rapid rise of SCM can be understood as resulting from (a) the existence of a wealthy milieu which accepted the movement as legitimate and (b) the SCM's attitude towards its own purpose and ideology which was open and inclusive. This denominationalism allowed the SCM to utilise the resources of the milieu and to recruit rapidly. It also laid the foundation for an erosion of purpose and identity. Many of the problems that promoted the decline of the SCM were caused by the particular nature of its constituency, recruiting as it did among students and experiencing therefore a high membership turnover, but a full understanding of the contrast between the decline of SCM and the stability of lVF requires consideration of the ideologies that informed the two organisations. For this reason the final chapter is concerned with the reasons for the precariousness of liberal protestantism and the strength of conservative evangelicalism.

This research investigates parental choice in an active preschool education market in Taiwan. Most research into parental choice of school has been conducted in quasi-markets; markets that are highly regulated by government policy. The Taiwanese preschool market could be said to be a true market, operating through supply and demand and regulated by price. How parents operate in such markets and how their choice influences what is offered, is less explored. The research consisted of following eighteen parents through the choice process. Data collection methods involved diaries completed before the child started preschool and two in-depth interviews; one at the beginning of the school year and one nine months later. The parents who supplied the information came from different educational backgrounds, social status and family structures. For most it was their first experience of choosing an educational setting for their children. Using a rational choice theoretical framework the thesis argues that there was certain rationality in the parents’ process of choice but balancing the benefits and costs of preschool education was embedded in a wider family context. In addition, the findings show that whilst the parents were initially concerned about the more structural aspects of quality, their on-going engagement with the preschool provision enabled them to have a deeper understanding of process issues. However, there were other criteria that the parents used which would suggest that they were defining quality in a way that may be more influenced by Taiwanese life and culture. One implication is that the quality of preschool provision is not likely to improve if it is purely dependent on preschools wishing to meet the parents’expectations. However, neither will it improve if the contextual conditions are ignored. The implications for Taiwanese government preschool policy are discussed.

<p>The globalization today has led to increased global competition. As companies seek out foreign markets in order to internationalize their operations, it is common that they encounter many cultural problems. Bribery and corruption is a common problem in international trade. Corruption is strongly linked to the national culture which means that corruption is accepted in differing degrees within different nations. This can be a problem when companies establish their operations in foreign markets.</p><p>The purpose of this essay is to examine and analyze how companies act in a corrupt market without participating in corrupt activities.</p><p>The authors have performed both a qualitative and a quantitative study. Seven companies have been interviewed and 23 companies participated in a questionnaire survey. All companies that participated in the study are Swedish companies that have established their operations in India. The questions that are used in the interviews as well as the questionnaire are based on theories and literature that were used in the theoretical part of the essay.</p><p>The results show that the companies that participated in the study do not work entirely in accordance with the theory "strategies for coping with corruption". Swedish companies in India are mainly influenced by the administrative and little corruption in India. The majority of companies that participated in the study are acting in accordance with the rational choice theory. This is likely because the companies constantly work to maximize their profits, which leads to participation in some corrupt activities. Corruption may benefit the individual company while it may disfavour society as a whole.</p> / <p>Den globalisering som präglar samhället idag har medfört att konkurrensen ökat globalt. Då företag söker sig till främmande marknader för att internationalisera sin verksamhet är det vanligt att det uppstår många kulturella problem. Ett vanligt problem inom internationella affärstransaktioner är mutor och korruption. Korruption är starkt kopplat till en nations kultur vilket gör att korruption accepteras olika på olika marknader. Därav kan det bli problem när företag etablerar sin verksamhet på främmande marknader.<p> </p><p><p>Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka och analysera hur företag agerar på en korrupt marknad utan att själva delta i korrupt verksamhet.<p> </p><p>Studien utgår ifrån både en kvalitativ och kvantitativ undersökningens metod. Sju intervjuer och en enkätundersökning med 23 svenska företag som är verksamma i Indien har genomförts. Frågorna som undersökningarna är baserade på utgår ifrån studiens teorier och litteratur.<p> </p><p>Resultatet visar att företagen som deltog i studien inte arbetar helt i enlighet med teorin om strategier för hantering av korruption. Svenska företag i Indien påverkas främst av den administrativa och lilla korruptionen i Indien. En majoritet av företagen som deltog i studien agerar i enlighet med teorin rational choice då de strävar efter att hela tiden vinstmaximera, vilket innebär att de ibland deltar i korrupt verksamhet. Korruption kan gynna det enskilda företaget samtidigt som det kan missgynna samhället som helhet.<p> </p><p> </p><p> <p> </p></p></p></p></p></p></p>

The globalization today has led to increased global competition. As companies seek out foreign markets in order to internationalize their operations, it is common that they encounter many cultural problems. Bribery and corruption is a common problem in international trade. Corruption is strongly linked to the national culture which means that corruption is accepted in differing degrees within different nations. This can be a problem when companies establish their operations in foreign markets. The purpose of this essay is to examine and analyze how companies act in a corrupt market without participating in corrupt activities. The authors have performed both a qualitative and a quantitative study. Seven companies have been interviewed and 23 companies participated in a questionnaire survey. All companies that participated in the study are Swedish companies that have established their operations in India. The questions that are used in the interviews as well as the questionnaire are based on theories and literature that were used in the theoretical part of the essay. The results show that the companies that participated in the study do not work entirely in accordance with the theory "strategies for coping with corruption". Swedish companies in India are mainly influenced by the administrative and little corruption in India. The majority of companies that participated in the study are acting in accordance with the rational choice theory. This is likely because the companies constantly work to maximize their profits, which leads to participation in some corrupt activities. Corruption may benefit the individual company while it may disfavour society as a whole. / Den globalisering som präglar samhället idag har medfört att konkurrensen ökat globalt. Då företag söker sig till främmande marknader för att internationalisera sin verksamhet är det vanligt att det uppstår många kulturella problem. Ett vanligt problem inom internationella affärstransaktioner är mutor och korruption. Korruption är starkt kopplat till en nations kultur vilket gör att korruption accepteras olika på olika marknader. Därav kan det bli problem när företag etablerar sin verksamhet på främmande marknader.  Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka och analysera hur företag agerar på en korrupt marknad utan att själva delta i korrupt verksamhet.  Studien utgår ifrån både en kvalitativ och kvantitativ undersökningens metod. Sju intervjuer och en enkätundersökning med 23 svenska företag som är verksamma i Indien har genomförts. Frågorna som undersökningarna är baserade på utgår ifrån studiens teorier och litteratur.  Resultatet visar att företagen som deltog i studien inte arbetar helt i enlighet med teorin om strategier för hantering av korruption. Svenska företag i Indien påverkas främst av den administrativa och lilla korruptionen i Indien. En majoritet av företagen som deltog i studien agerar i enlighet med teorin rational choice då de strävar efter att hela tiden vinstmaximera, vilket innebär att de ibland deltar i korrupt verksamhet. Korruption kan gynna det enskilda företaget samtidigt som det kan missgynna samhället som helhet.

Sveriges har under flera år haft en hög ungdomsarbetslöshet och jämfört med andra länder i Europa ligger den på en högre nivå än genomsnittet. Enligt Statistiska Centralbyrån (SCB) beräknas arbetslösheten bland svenska ungdomar ligga på 26,4 procent vilket är högre än vad den var under samma period förra året. Det finns många skilda meningar kring varför ungdomar har svårt att komma in på arbetsmarknaden och trots de ekonomiska åtgärder som riksdagen genomfört så fortsätter ungdomsarbetslösheten att stiga. Syftet med studien var att söka djupare förståelse för vad som påverkar rekryterare att anställa eller inte anställa ungdomar. Vilka kvalifikationer och personliga egenskaper söker rekryterare och efterfrågas ekonomiska åtgärder eller vad tror de skulle underlätta ungdomars inträde på arbetsmarknaden? För att ta reda på detta genomfördes semi-strukturerade intervjuer med två rekryterare från tre olika branscher, hotell- och restaurangbranschen, IT- och telekombranschen och vård- och omsorgsbranschen. Den kvalitativa metoden antogs då den är lämplig för att tolka och beskriva människors egna upplevelser kring olika fenomen. Studiens empiriska resultat analyserades utifrån rational choice-teorin och organisationsteorin vilka kompletterar varandra och ger utrymme för olika perspektiv av rationalitet. Av resultatet framgick att rekryterarna i studien söker olika kvalifikationer beroende på vilken tjänst som ska tillsättas. De ser många fördelar med att anställa ungdomar och inom hotell- och restaurangbranschen och vård- och omsorgsbranschen utgör unga redan en stor del, ibland störst, av arbetskraften. Däremot uppger rekryterarna att de inte påverkarts att anställa fler ungdomar sen det att de ekonomiska åtgärderna genomförts utan tror att andra åtgärder skulle vara mer effektiva. Studiens resultat stämmer väl överens med vad tidigare forskning visat.

In 2002, Reginald Bibby surprisingly asserted that a renaissance of religion is, or soon will be taking place in Canada. However, the assertion clashes with the dominant belief based largely on Bibby’s accumulated data about Canadians’ religious beliefs and practices, that Canada is becoming an increasingly secularized society. Based on forty-two in-depth interviews, this dissertation tests the “renaissance thesis” and improves our grasp of how Canadians subjectively understand their religious involvements by comparing the views of active religious affiliates (those who identify with a religious group and attend religious services nearly every week) and marginal religious affiliates (those who identify with a religious group and attend religious services primarily on Christmas or Easter, or for rites of passage such as weddings and funerals). What explains their higher and lower levels of religious involvement, what is the likelihood that marginal affiliates could eventually become active affiliates, and how does this understanding help us to assess the degree of religiosity or secularity in Canada? I argue that active and marginal affiliates are distinct mainly because of their different experiences with the supernatural or their local congregation, and the social influences that either encourage or discourage involvement in a religious group. These conclusions emerge from a close examination and testing of fundamental principles in Rational Choice Theory, a theory currently popular in the sociology of religion and in Bibby’s ongoing analysis of religion in Canada. Contrary to Bibby’s prediction, there is little reason to believe that marginal affiliates will eventually become active affiliates, regardless of changes to the supply of religion in Canada. In general, marginal affiliates appear content with their current levels of religiosity. As a result, I think it is likely that we will witness continued secularization at the individual level in Canada, which if proven correct, could strain Canada’s civic fabric in the future.