Today's environment is filled with the proliferation of cyber-attacks that result in losses for organizations and individuals. Hackers often use compromised websites to distribute malware, making it difficult for individuals to detect. The impact of clicking through a link on the Internet that is malware infected can result in consequences such as private information theft and identity theft. Hackers are also known to perpetrate cyber-attacks that result in organizational security breaches that adversely affect organizations' finances, reputation, and market value. Risk management approaches for minimizing and recovering from cyber-attack losses and preventing further cyber-attacks are gaining more importance. Many studies exist that have increased our understanding of how individuals and organizations are motivated to reduce or avoid the risks of security breaches and cyber-attacks using safeguard mechanisms. The safeguards are sometimes technical in nature, such as intrusion detection software and anti-virus software. Other times, the safeguards are procedural in nature such as security policy adherence and security awareness and training. Many of these safeguards fall under the risk mitigation and risk avoidance aspects of risk management, and do not address other aspects of risk management, such as risk transfer. Researchers have argued that technological approaches to security risks are rarely …

Understanding information technology and its related products and services is increasingly important because the everyday use of technology continues to expand and broaden. Despite this need for greater understanding, the extant theories that explore the dominant factors that drive intention to use a new technology are limited. The Technology Acceptancy Model (TAM) is the most popular model in explaining traditional technology adoption. The limitations of the TAM in grasping the overall evaluation of technology or service are one of motivations for developing new models in this dissertation. The two antecedents of the TAM- perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use- only capture partial utility of a service (or product). In addition, some researchers argued that key factors used in an initial acceptance model such as perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are not strong predictors of future continuance intention of the service because they do not consider future switching intention in the later stage. Hence, one goal of this dissertation is to develop and test new models to predict factors that drive intention and continuance intention decisions of new technology related products or services. This research involves three studies that examine different aspects of adoption and continuance intention decisions …

In the operations management research, the inconsistent use of the same term for different concepts and the use of the similar concepts for different constructs potentially causes theoretical and statistical problems. This research addresses the importance of construct definitions and specification methodologically within the context of quality and sustainability management. It involves three essays using multiple quantitative methods such as partial least squares structural equation modeling and multiple regression in different consumer decision-making models in the automobile industry. In the first two essays, a comprehensive literature review results in definition and contextualization of the quality and sustainability constructs as applied to operations management and marketing research. The relationships of these constructs with consumer behavior are empirically tested. Building upon the first two essays, the third essay addresses the methodological issues on formative and reflective measurements by summarizing a procedure of validating formative measurements. The quality construct was used to illustrate the methodology. This research contributes to the literature, theory, and practices in the area of quality and sustainability management.