A model for describing and maximising Security Knowledge Sharing to enhance security awareness

Employees play a crucial role in enhancing information security in the workplace, and this requires everyone having the requisite security knowledge and know-how. To maximise knowledge levels, organisations should encourage and facilitate Security Knowledge Sharing (SKS) between employees. To maximise sharing, we need first to understand the mechanisms whereby such sharing takes place and then to encourage and engender such sharing. A study was carried out to test the applicability of Transactive Memory Systems Theory in describing knowledge sharing in this context, which confirmed its applicability in this domain. To encourage security knowledge sharing, the harnessing of Self-Determination Theory was proposed— satisfying employee autonomy, relatedness and competence needs to maximise sharing. Such sharing is required to improve and enhance employee security awareness across organisations. We propose a model to describe the mechanisms for such sharing as well as the means by which it can be encouraged

Reducing information overload by optimising information retrieval approaches

The information within an organisation forms a fundamental part of its success. In recent years the volume of information housed and processed by organisations has increased exponentially and grown to such a rate that it can be difficult to harness and make successful use of that information. This growth of information has led to the increasing prevalence of the concept of information overload. Although information overload is not a new concept, it is still considered a large-scale problem, with its effect upon the workplace and employees becoming increasingly detrimental. With the increase in available information comes the potential for increased overload. This research addresses some of the potential barriers that may exist preventing effective discovery, storage and sharing of information and thus increasing the information overload problem. [Continues.