Taking a Seat at the Table: The Quest for CISO Legitimacy

The role of the chief information security officer (CISO) has emerged as critically important to organizations in managing cybersecurity risks. Unfortunately, many CISOs are limited by perceptions of boards and executive teams that the CISO is not a strategic partner. This study investigates CISOs’ struggles for legitimacy in their ascendancy into the executive suite and in directly reporting to the board of directors. In a grounded theory interview study, we use legitimacy theory as a lens to develop a model of a virtuous cycle of legitimacy, wherein a CISO’s legitimacy gains at the board level feed into successful bids for legitimacy within the executive suite, extending legitimacy theory to include legitimacy assessments within related hierarchal groups (i.e., the board and executive team). Given the growing importance of CISOs, we inform research and practice on how they can become full-fledged members of the executive team and legitimate partners of the board

COLLABORATIVE WRITING TO IMPROVE INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH AND PRACTICE

On behalf of

The impact of process structure on novice, virtual collaborative writing teams

Asynchronous-distributed (AD) collaborative writing (CW) is an important form of the growing trend of distributed work. However, AD CW typically results in multiple process losses. We argue that using advanced writing technologies designed for AD work alone is not sufficient by itself to overcome these losses. Instead, adopting high levels of process structure delivered in the form of explicitly written procedural scripts can improve the results of AD CW groups. We performed an experiment with over 500 participants working in groups supported by advanced CW technologies that were designed for AD work. Participants were given six weeks to conduct their work. We found that high levels of process structure in novice AD CW groups that worked on a moderately complex task created significantly better outcomes than did groups using low levels of process structure. Groups with high levels of process structure had better results in terms of production, document quality, satisfaction, relationships, and communication. In no case did low-structure groups outperform high-structure groups. This research supports our hypothesis that increased process structure delivered in the form of a repeatable process script can decrease process losses and increase process gains in novice AD CW groups. We conclude that it is not sufficient to give novice AD writing groups CW technology and time to conduct their tasks; these groups also need appropriate procedural support, which can be provided effectively through written scripts. © 2005 IEEE.Link_to_subscribed_fulltex