THE ROLES OF POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EXEMPLARS IN INFORMATION SECURITY STRATEGY

The strategic approach used to manage organizational security is strongly influenced by management 's perception of risk. These perceptions often lead executives to focus on the use of technology based solutions. Such solutions, aimed primarily at keeping data safe from outsiders, overlook the potential that more severe security breaches may be perpetrated by trusted insiders. Behavioral concepts such as ethnocentrism, group membership and intergroup bias, form the basis of an investigation that is aimed at developing our understanding of information security as a social issue. This paper considers the influence of in-group trust and out-group distrust, and the potential impact that positive and negative exemplars have on information security strategies.