THE ORGANIZATIONAL SECURITY INDEX: A TOOL FOR ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF NATIONAL CULTURE ON INFORMATION SECURITY ATTITUDES IN SLOVENIA AND THE UNITED STATES
Issues in Information Systems · 2020
This study seeks to enhance understanding of the role that national culture plays in influencing employee attitudes and behaviors with respect to information security.Commercial firms and governmental organizations are increasingly dependent on a variety of relationships with foreign organizations staffed by individuals raised and socialized in their own national culture.Information security professionals agree that people, rather than technology, pose the greatest threat to information within an organization.As commercial organizations recognize the importance of establishing an effective information security culture, the importance of understanding the security-related attitudes of the workforce becomes apparent.The impact of national culture on information security attitudes and behavior has relevance not only in the commercial world, but also in the public sector, as government entities engage with foreign partners in activities ranging from information exchanges to multinational, coalition military operations.One of the most widely-used theoretical models used to assess and describe national culture, and to compare one national culture to another, is the framework developed by Hofstede (1980).This study employs an explanatory sequential mixed methods model to examine how national culture influences the attitudes of employees in an insurance company in Slovenia and a maritime industry firm in the United States.Building upon Hofstede's work, this study proposes an Organizational Security Culture Index, or OSCI, as a tool for helping gauge how national culture influences information security-related attitudes in a workforce.