Abstract
Now, more than ever, organizations are being created to protect the cyberspace environment. The ability of cyber organizations tasked to defend critical infrastructure assets has been called into question by numerous cyber security experts. Organizational theory states that organizations should be constructed to fit their operating environments properly. Little research in this area links organizational theory to cyber organizational structure. Because of the cyberspace connection to critical infrastructure assets, the factors that influence the structure of cyber organizations designed to protect these assets warrant analyses to identify opportunities for improvement.
This chapter examines the cyber-connected critical infrastructure environment using organizational structure theories. A multiple case study and content analysis involving 2,856 sampling units were employed to ascertain the level of perceived uncertainty in the environment (measured using the dimensions of complexity, dynamism and munificence). The results indicate that the general external environment of cyber organizations tasked to protect the critical infrastructure is highly uncertain and merits the implementation of organic structuring principles.
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aldrich, H.: Organizations and Environments, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California (2008)
Aldrich, H., Herker, D.: Boundary spanning roles and organization structure, Academy of Management Review, vol. 2(2), pp. 217–230 (1977)
Aldrich, H., Pfeffer, J.: Environments of organizations, Annual Reviewof Sociology, vol. 2, pp. 79–105 (1976)
Barnett, T.: Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating, Berkley Publishing Group, New York (2005)
C. Bennett, U.S. not prepared for cyberattacks, ex-NSA chief warns, The Hill, November 14, 2014
Berelson, B.: Content Analysis in Communication Research, Free Press,Glencoe, Illinois (1952)
Bluedorn, A.: Pilgrim’s progress: Trends and convergence in research on organizational size and environments, Journal of Management vol. 19(2), pp. 163–191 (1993)
Boin, A., van Eeten, M.: The resilient organization, Public Management Review vol. 15(3), pp. 429–445, 2013
Boyer, S.: SCADA: Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, Instrumentation,Systems and Automation Society, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina (2010)
Brafman, O., Beckstrom, R.: The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations, Penguin, New York (2006)
Bumiller, E., Shanker, T.: Panetta warns of dire threat of cyberattackon U.S., New York Times, October 11, 2012
Burns, T., Stalker, G.: The Management of Innovation, Tavistock, London,United Kingdom (1961)
Child, J.: Organizational structure, environment and performance: The roleof strategic choice, Sociology, vol. 6(1), pp. 1–22 (1972)
Clarke, R., Knake, R.: Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It, HarperCollins Publishers, New York (2010)
Cohen, J.: A coefficient of agreement for nominal scales, Educational and Psychological Measurement, vol. 20(1), pp. 37–46 (1960)
Collyer, S., Warren, C.: Project management approaches for dynamicenvironments, International Journal of Project Management, vol. 27(4),pp. 355–364 (2009)
Colquitt, J., LePine, J., Wesson, M.: Organizational Behavior: ImprovingPerformance and Commitment in the Workplace, McGraw-Hill, New York,2014
Daft, R., Sormunen, J., Parks, D.: Chief executive scanning, environmentalcharacteristics and company performance: An empirical study, StrategicManagement Journal, vol. 9(2), pp. 123–139 (1988)
Dess, G., Beard, D.: Dimensions of organizational task environments,Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 29(1), pp. 52–73, 1984
Dewett, T., Jones, G.: The role of information technology in the organization:A review, model and assessment, Journal of Management, vol.27(3), pp. 313–346 (2001)
DiMaggio, P., Powell, W.: P. DiMaggio and W. Powell, The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields, American SociologicalReview, vol. 48(2), pp. 147–160 (1983)
Donaldson, L.: Strategy and structural adjustment to regain fit and performance: In defense of contingency theory, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 24(1), pp. 1–24 (1987)
Donaldson, L.: The normal science of structural contingency theory, inStudying Organizations: Theory and Method, S. Clegg and C. Hardy (Eds.),Sage Publications, London, United Kingdom, pp. 51–70 (1999)
Donaldson, L.: The contingency theory of organizational design: Challengesand opportunities, in Organization Design, R. Burton, B. Eriksen, D.Hakonsson and C. Snow (Eds.), Springer, New York, pp. 19–40 (2006)
Duncan, R.: Characteristics of organizational environments and perceivedenvironmental uncertainty, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 17(3),pp. 313–327 (1972)
Fiss, P.: Building better causal theories: A fuzzy set approach to typologiesin organization research, Academy of Management Journal, vol. 54(2), pp.393–420 (2011)
Flesch, R.: How to Write Plain English: A Book for Lawyers and Consumers,HarperCollins Publishers, New York (1979)
Gladwell, M.: Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, Back BayBooks, New York (2007)
Gooding, R., Wagner, J.: A meta-analytic review of the relationshipbetween size and performance: The productivity and efficiency of organizationsand their sub-units, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 30(4), pp. 462–481 (1985)
Gordon, L., Narayanan, V.: Management accounting systems, perceivedenvironmental uncertainty and organization structure: An empirical investigation,Accounting, Organizations and Society, vol. 9(1), pp. 33–47 (1984)
Government Accountability Office, Content Analysis: A Methodology forStructuring and Analyzing Written Material, GAO/PEMD-10.3.1, Washington,DC (1996)
Harris, R.: Organizational task environments: An evaluation of convergent and discriminant validity, Journal of Management Studies, vol. 41(5), pp. 857–882 (2004)
Hollnagel, E., Woods, D., Leveson, N.: Resilience Engineering: Concepts and Precepts, Ashgate Publishing, Burlington, Vermont (2006)
Ilinitch, A., D’Aveni, R., Lewin, A.: New organizational forms and strategiesfor managing in hypercompetitive environments, Organization Science,vol. 7(3), pp. 211–220 (1996)
Jacobs, D.: Dependency and vulnerability: An exchange approach to the control of organizations, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 19(1), pp. 45–59 (1974)
Khandwalla, P.: Environment and its impact on the organization, InternationalStudies of Management and Organization, vol. 2(3), pp. 297–313 (1972)
Kincaid, J., Fishburne, R., Rogers, R., Chissom, B.: Derivation of New Readability Formulas (Automated Readability Index, Fog Count and Flesch Reading Ease Formula) for Navy Enlisted Personnel, Research Branch Report 8–75. Chief of Naval Technical Training Command, Naval Air Station Memphis, Millington, Tennessee (1975)
Koppel, T.: Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Survivingthe Aftermath, Crown Publishers, New York (2015)
Krippendorff, K.: Content Analysis: An Introduction to its Methodology,Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California (2013)
Landis, J., Koch, G.: The measurement of observer agreement for categoricaldata, Biometrics, vol. 33(1), pp. 159–174 (1977)
Lawrence, P., Lorsch, J.: Differentiation and integration in complexorganizations, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 12(1), pp. 1–47 (1967)
Liao, C., Chuang, S., To, P.: How knowledge management mediates the relationship between environment and organizational structure, Journal of Business Research, vol. 64(7), pp. 728–736 (2011)
Liu, Z., Yang, D., Wen, D., Zhang, W., Mao, W.: Cyber-physical-social systems for command and control, IEEE Intelligent Systems, vol. 26(4), pp. 92–96 (2011)
Lombard, M., Snyder-Duch, J., Campanella, C.: Bracken. Content analysis in mass communication: Assessment and reporting of inter-coder reliability, Human Communication Research, vol. 28(4), pp. 587–604 (2002)
Okoli, C., Pawlowski, S.: The Delphi method as a research tool: An example, design considerations and applications, Information and Management vol. 42(1), pp. 15–29 (2004)
Olson, P.:We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymousand the Global Cyber Insurgency, Back Bay Books, New York (2013)
Orlikowski, W.: The duality of technology: Rethinking the concept of technologyin organizations, Organization Science, vol. 3(3), pp. 398–427 (1992)
Patten, M.: Understanding Research Methods: An Overview of the Essentials,Pyrczak Publishing, Glendale, California (2009)
Pfeffer, J.: Organizations and Organization Theory, Pitman, Boston, Massachusetts (1982)
Pfeffer, J., Leblebici, H.: The effect of competition on some dimensionsof organizational structure, Social Forces, vol. 52(2), pp. 268–279 (1973)
Pfeffer, J., Salancik, G.: The External Control of Organizations: A Resource Dependence Approach, Stanford University Press, Stanford, California (2003)
Pugh, D.: The measurement of organization structures: Does context determineform? Organizational Dynamics, vol. 1(4), pp. 19–34 (1973)
Qiu, J., Donaldson, L., Luo, B.: The benefits of persisting with paradigmsin organizational research, Academy of Management Perspectives, vol.26(1), pp. 93–104 (2012)
Savin-Baden, M., Howell Major, C.: Qualitative Research: The EssentialGuide to Theory and Practice, Routledge, Abingdon, United Kingdom,(2012)
Seffers, G.: Cyber commander expects damaging critical infrastructure attack, Signal, December 1, 2014
Stemler, S.: An overview of content analysis, Practical Assessment, Research and Evaluation, vol. 7(17) (2001)
Tushman, M., Nelson, R.: Introduction: Technology, organizations andinnovation, Administrative Science Quarterly, vol. 35(1), pp. 1–8 (1990)
van de Ven, A., Ferry, D.: Measuring and Assessing Organizations, John Wiley and Sons, New York (1980)
Weber, R.: Basic Content Analysis, Sage Publications, Newbury Park, California (1990)
Worrall, S. : Is the United States prepared for a massive cyberattack? National Geographic, Washington, DC, November 8, 2015
Yin, R.: Case Study Research Design and Methods, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California (2014)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing (outside the US)
About this paper
Cite this paper
Quigg, M., Lopez, J., Rice, M., Grimaila, M., Ramsey, B. (2016). Cyberspace and Organizational Structure: An Analysis of the Critical Infrastructure Environment. In: Rice, M., Shenoi, S. (eds) Critical Infrastructure Protection X. ICCIP 2016. IFIP Advances in Information and Communication Technology, vol 485. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48737-3_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48737-3_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-48736-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-48737-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)