A Meta-Analysis of Security Risk Theory Literature in IS from 2000-2006

Information Security Risk (ISR) has become an important focus in MIS literature as of late (Hale 1996; Hancock 2000; Jaamour 2005). However, few studies have attempted to analyze the types of articles being published as well as defining the area of research interest in security literature. The purpose of this study demarcates the historical and maturation of ISR research in MIS by a comprehensive appraisal of the published Security Risk articles in MIS journals over the last 6 years (2000-2006). This paper addresses the following core questions about the material covered in the Security Risk articles: 1) What are the contexts of the research? 2) What are the methodologies used? 3) What types of factors affect the evolution of the topic? It is widely recognized that research that synthesizes existing studies to provide an overview of an emerging field is often scarce but extremely important to advance scholarly understanding of the current state of the field and to suggest future directions (Hovav et al. 2004). A number of areas for future research are presented, as well as a discussion on the findings in trends of evolution of the topic.