Cybersecurity and Organizational Science Workshop

George Mason University, Fairfax VA

Investigators

Abstract

Cyber threats to organizational networks have become increasingly common, and demanded the need for a robust scientific literature devoted to the organizational science aspects of cybersecurity. To facilitate the development of such a literature, the proposed workshop will bring together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in organizational science and cybersecurity. This workshop will facilitate interdisciplinary integration by: (1) targeting leading experts in core organizational science topic areas who also have interests in cybersecurity; (2) connecting these experts to cybersecurity researchers, practitioners, and policymakers who also have interests in organizational science; (3) hosting presentations at the intersection of organizational science and cybersecurity; (4) breaking through disciplinary barriers to knowledge generation; and (5) developing a concrete agenda for future research. Space in the workshop will be reserved for graduate students from groups underrepresented in cybersecurity and the organizational sciences. To build the overall research capacity of the community, space will also be reserved for faculty from local, non-research-intensive universities. These products from the workshop will be disseminated to a wide variety of stakeholders, so as to inform public policy and enhance national security. The proposed interdisciplinary workshop addresses the human aspect of cybersecurity in organizational settings, focusing both on employees with cybersecurity-relevant jobs (e.g., analysts working in Security Operations Centers) and the end-users of technology (i.e., essentially all employees in the organization). Workshop attendees will include organizational science researchers and practitioners who study topics relevant to cybersecurity at the micro (e.g., individual employee or end-user), meso (e.g., team or multiteam system), and macro (e.g., organization or country) levels of analysis, along with cybersecurity researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. The absence of direct communication between the organizational sciences and cybersecurity has arguably harmed both fields, and so the workshop will focus on cross-pollination, identification of roadblocks, and the joint development of a future agenda. To that end, the workshop will include keynote presentations (targeted at various levels of analysis), interdisciplinary reactions to keynote presentations, panel discussions, information sharing exercises, breakout groups on specific interdisciplinary topics (e.g., insider threat, collaboration in multiteam systems), and semi-structured networking opportunities. The workshop aims to identify and overcome barriers to collaboration between the organizational sciences and cybersecurity, identify avenues for external funding as well as various publication outlets for research at the intersection of the two disciplines (e.g., high-impact organizational science journals, high-impact cybersecurity journals, ?translational? outlets aimed at disseminating organizational science research to cybersecurity policymakers and managers), and develop a concrete agenda for future interdisciplinary research. Deliverables from the workshop will include: (1) a website containing the workshop program, speakers? (and other attendees?) names and biographical information, background reading on the organizational sciences and cybersecurity, and copies of workshop presentations; (2) an overall technical report (also made available on the workshop website) delineating the conclusions, recommendations, and research agenda generated during the workshop; and (3) a press release and a flier containing information and a link to the overall report.