A Risk Assessment Framework for Inter-Organizational Knowledge Sharing

Internet-based Information, Communication and Collaboration technologies are making it easier for organizations and knowledge workers to collaborate across organizational boundaries. However, it is necessary for organizations to monitor, regulate and build appropriate security mechanisms in collaboration systems to prevent loss of strategic knowledge and competitive advantage. In this paper, we present a risk assessment framework that can help organizations identify valuable knowledge assets exposed through collaboration technologies, and assess the risk of knowledge loss, intellectual property leakage, and the subsequent loss of competitive advantage so that appropriate security mechanism can be designed to prevent such a loss. We present an illustrative scenario to demonstrate the feasibility of the framework, and describe a prototype decision support system for automating the risk assessment process.