Establishment of Security Knowledge Sharing in Organisations: An Empirical Study

The purpose of the present study is to empirically investigate what drives the establishment of security knowledge sharing in organisations. Based on a theoretical understanding a research model was developed and tested by collecting and analysing data from 62 security executives from a diverse set of organisations located in different geographic regions in the world. The empirical tests of a structural model revealed that all proposed hypotheses are accepted, except the hypotheses proposing a positive link between business-based information security and the establishment of security knowledge sharing. Organisational structure has a major direct influence on the establishment of security knowledge sharing in organisations, while the effect of coordinating information security process is moderate. A mediation analysis revealed that the reason for the nonsignificant direct relation between business-based information security and security knowledge sharing is the fully mediating effect of coordinating information security process. Thus, coordinating information security process has an important role on security knowledge sharing by either partially or fully mediating the effects of both organisational structure and business-based information security on security knowledge sharing. Implications and recommendation for future research are further discussed.