Human-related Information Security Problems Faced by British Companies in Economically Rising Countries

In some cases, global businesses expansion leads to human-related problems due to cultural differences between investor countries and investee countries. This study focuses on such problems in the area of information security. Potential problems which British companies may face in rising economies are discussed here. Russia, India and China, where UK is one of the key investors, are examined. Potential problems were developed by using Hofstede’s framework of culture and the recently proposed theory of Level of Potential (LoP) was adopted to predict their magnitudes. Three online surveys were conducted in Russia, India and China to evaluate the severity of the potential problems and the practicability of LoP. It is proved that the theory of LoP can predict problems for British companies in economically rising business environments to a certain extent. The results reveal that the problem of “Unintentional sharing of confidential information” has the highest severity in Russia and India, while the problem of “Using any means to reach goals owing to high competition” has the highest severity in China.