Organizational objectives for information security governance: a value focused assessment

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to develop theoretically grounded and empirically derived organizational security governance (OSG) objectives. Developing organizational security governance (OSG) objectives pose significant challenges for organizations considering the ever-increasing vulnerability from lack of or misuse of appropriate controls. In recent years, there have been several cases of colossal losses to businesses due to inadequate security governance measure. In many cases, organizations do not even know as to what their ISG objectives might be. Following an extensive empirical study, this paper proposes 6 fundamental and 17 means objectives for designing security governance. The objectives were developed from individual values of information technology and security executives across a wide range of firms. The study comprised 52 interview respondents across 9 firms, which resulted in 23 OSG objectives. Theoretically, the study was grounded in Catton’s (1959) value theory and Keeney’s (1992) value-focused thinking. The objectives provide a useful basis for strategic planning for information security governance. Design/methodology/approach – This research is grounded in value-focused thinking methodology. Step 1: develop a comprehensive list of personal values underlying the problem being explored. The researcher undertakes extensive interviews, using relevant probes, to elicit underlying values of respondents. Step 2: change the values enlisted to a common form and convert them into objectives. The data collected in Step 1 is collated and presented in a common form, which enables cross-comparison and easy interpretation. Step 3: classify the objectives as means and fundamental for the decision context. Objectives are clustered into groups and then classified into fundamental and means. Findings – This study uses a value-focused approach to develop OSG objectives. Incorporating individual values in developing governance objectives would facilitate alignment of individual and organizational values about OSG. This study proposes 6 fundamental and 17 means objectives for OSG. The study provides a comprehensive list of OSG that is rooted in values of stakeholders in an organization. Originality/value – The main contributions study can be classified in two categories. First, it represents a collective set of OSG objectives which touch upon technical, formal, informal, moral and ethical dimensions of governance. This is a unique, synthesized and cohesive framework for OSG, which incorporates several aspects of OSG into one platform, thus allowing the development of a comprehensive security management program. Second, some of the objectives developed in this research (“establish corporate control strategy”, “establish punitive structure”, “establish clear control development process”, “ensure formal control assessment functionality” and “maximize group cohesiveness”) have not been emphasized enough in security governance literature.