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1 – 10 of over 2000Sefer Yilmaz, Huseyin Ozgen and Recai Akyel
The main purpose of this study is to develop an understanding of how managerial methods can be used during the change process to direct employees' attitudes positively…
Abstract
Purpose
The main purpose of this study is to develop an understanding of how managerial methods can be used during the change process to direct employees' attitudes positively towards change. This study also aims to provide considerable implications for the homeland security managers suitable for the applications on the area of homeland security. Paying requisite attention to the attitudes of employees towards change and careful selection of change management methods is considered critical for determining the ultimate success.
Design/methodology/approach
The data used in this study were obtained by the questionnaire survey method, analyzed by using a statistics software program, and main findings of the study were evaluated. The last section of this study has a discussion and a conclusion which includes specific evaluations and recommendations regarding the homeland security organizations and their practices in Turkey. Due to the large data set available, only the main findings are presented in this paper.
Findings
Findings suggest that the methods used, such as informing the employees about what is going on regarding change, consulting them and maintaining participation of the employees to the change process, have a positive impact on the attitudes of security managers towards change. This means that if an organization complies with the advice of the change literature asserting that the employees should be informed of, consulted and participate in the change from the outset of the process, the employees would probably commit themselves to change rather than resisting it.
Originality/value
The topic of this study is believed to be of vital importance in the area of homeland security organizations of Turkey and other countries in the context of change management for the sake of success in change initiatives. It is hoped that this study will make contributions to the existent literature in that it combines two disciplines, namely, change management and homeland security management, in just one case study. This combination would add considerable insights into the success and/or failure of the change initiatives launched in the organizations of homeland security generally and in Turkey specifically.
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Lonnie M. Schaible and James Sheffield
The events of September 11, 2001 forever changed policing with state and local law enforcement now playing a central role. In this new role many agencies have begun to…
Abstract
Purpose
The events of September 11, 2001 forever changed policing with state and local law enforcement now playing a central role. In this new role many agencies have begun to re‐assess how they best fulfil the demands of homeland security and provide traditional law enforcement. Intelligence‐led policing (ILP) has been advocated as one approach with the potential to confront both terrorism and traditional crime problems; however, the degree to which ILP has been widely embraced remains relatively unexamined. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate whether level of involvement with homeland security related intelligence subsequent to 9/11 has had a significant impact on interactions between state and federal agencies, and facilitated organizational change in state law enforcement agencies.
Design/methodology/approach
Using data collected from a survey of state law enforcement agencies, the paper examines whether involvement in homeland security and the allocation of resources toward intelligence have had an impact on organizational change consistent with ILP.
Findings
Findings suggest increased involvement in homeland security significantly increased interaction between some state and federal agencies and significantly impacted organizational functions of intelligence, grants, and planning. However, contrary to expectations, allocation of resources had little impact on levels of interaction between agencies or broader organizational functions.
Practical implications
Findings suggest that while advances are being made which are consistent with ILP, improvements could be made in the role of theory and evidence‐based practice in driving reforms. More thoughtful distribution of homeland security grants targeting organizational change may be useful in stimulating such efforts. The findings are instructional in how the contemporary context and emerging trends such as ILP are likely to affect organizational change. Specifically, they suggest that if ILP is a desired model for reform in policing, further incentives to pursue its objectives may be necessary.
Originality/value
Most studies of ILP focus on case studies of single agencies. There are no studies which explicitly examine the degree to which principles of ILP have been reflected in organizational change within a broad sample of agencies. The present paper assesses such changes within a national (US) sample of law enforcement agencies.
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Christopher G. Reddick and Howard A. Frank
Survey findings from Florida reveal that larger, higher risk communities perceive greater budgetary trade-offs, a view that supports in part the U.S. Department of Homeland…
Abstract
Survey findings from Florida reveal that larger, higher risk communities perceive greater budgetary trade-offs, a view that supports in part the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s recently implemented strategy in distributing its grants. Per expectations, city managers with graduate education saw higher levels of readiness and lower threat risk than fire chiefs. Consistent with prior research, cities were reprogramming and using existing funds rather than new levies for homeland security initiatives. This finding was buttressed by results that recently enacted property tax limits and cuts in federal aid were seen as the greatest challenges to increased funding. Contrary to mainstream public administration writing, our respondents stated that restrained funding rather than intergovernmental coordination was the biggest issue they faced in meeting homeland security needs. Overall, our respondents saw a low risk of terror threat, a perception that may represent an accurate read of the operating environment or an implicit belief that higher levels of government will provide significant assistance in the event of a major terrorist attack or other conflagration.
Rahul Bhaskar, Bhushan Kapoor and Joseph Sherif
This paper aims to analyze provisions in the existing US laws and government directives for deployment, vigilance and persistence in managing homeland security.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze provisions in the existing US laws and government directives for deployment, vigilance and persistence in managing homeland security.
Design/methodology/approach
Within about a year after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the US Congress passed various new laws and the executive branch of the government issued a series of directives to maintain domestic security. The approach of the study is to analyze the provisions of the laws and the directives with an aim of seeing how these will enable risk management considering that the resources are not unlimited.
Findings
The existing laws and directives enhance the ability of the USA to manage domestic incidents by establishing a single, comprehensive national incident management system. However, the major impediment to risk management is currently the lack of ability to share critical information among federal, state, local, tribal, public and private sector organizations. The government and private sectors should work together to form partnerships and to improve the flow of information. To make risk management processes truly effective, people need to be educated on their advantages and disadvantages so that they can use such tools appropriately to help them prioritize and allocate resources.
Originality/value
The paper advances research and strategies to manage homeland security and eliminate or at least reduce the risk of terrorist attacks.
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Kai S. Koong, Mohammad I. Merhi and Jun Sun
The purpose of this study is to find out whether efforts to improve the information security of government agencies and homeland information security have paid off and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to find out whether efforts to improve the information security of government agencies and homeland information security have paid off and also different incentives (internal/external) impact s on the improvement of information security of the government agencies?
Design/methodology/approach
This study examines the information security status of 24 federal agencies in the USA over the period 2002 through 2007 using latent growth modeling. The information security status of these agencies was tracked with the grades revealed in the Federal Computer Security Report Cards. In addition, the number of employees (internal threat incentives) and budgets incentives of federal agencies were gathered from the agencies and other governmental websites for the same period of time.
Findings
Results indicated that high critical‐information agencies even though they have an overall low performance in information security, they are performing better than the low critical‐information agencies regarding solving external threats. Results also revealed that whereas agencies have generally paid more attention to information security over the years, their performances are more pertinent to change in budget incentives than other incentives.
Research limitations/implications
The outcomes reported are confined to the data presented by the Federal Computer Security Report Cards. Another limitation is the number of employees that counts the total number of employees in the agencies whether they are related to the systems of the agencies or not. Finally, using a time‐lag analysis of budget to predict the current security score would be more straightforward, but this could not be applied in this study due to the insufficient sample size, as “the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform” no longer released the report cards after 2007.
Practical implications
The results should be of interest for the federal agencies that are included in this study, as well as for the organizations that are responsible for the information security of government agencies at different levels. Policy makers, IT managers, software developers and security specialists can also use the outcomes reported in this study for the better decision making that can enhance the information security in the public sector. The theoretical and methodological framework used in this study may also contribute to the current literature of homeland information security incentives and be helpful for future studies on its critical success factors.
Originality/value
This study examines fundamental issues that have not yet to be established. To our knowledge, this is the first study that assesses different incentives that have an effect on the Federal agencies' information security performance because of the lack of data in this domain. Also, the statistical techniques used to test the research propositions fit the objective of the study. Not only this, but the results found in this research assure the importance of one of the incentives that has been identified in the literature as a crucial element that affects the information security performance of the organizations.
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Susan Page Hocevar, Gail Fann Thomas and Erik Jansen
Recent events such as the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 against the United States and the national disaster of Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the acute need for…
Abstract
Recent events such as the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 against the United States and the national disaster of Hurricane Katrina demonstrated the acute need for interagency collaboration. Using a semi-inductive method, we conducted two studies with senior homeland security leaders to learn more about organizations’ collaborative capacity during the early planning stages. In study One, we used an interorganizational systems perspective to identify factors that create or deter effective collaboration. Study Two elicited vignettes from a second group of senior homeland security leaders to gain further insights into the ways in which their organizations are successfully building collaborative capacity.
Following the disasters of 9/11/01 the U.S. government has embarked on what is intended to be a comprehensive response to the hazard of further terrorist attacks on…
Abstract
Following the disasters of 9/11/01 the U.S. government has embarked on what is intended to be a comprehensive response to the hazard of further terrorist attacks on Americans at home and abroad. This paper addresses the homeland component of the response and asserts that both the general approach and the measures being deployed are neither comprehensive nor well-balanced. The broad goal of security is losing ground to the narrower objective of defense; mitigation strategies are being overshadowed by preparedness and response alternatives; expert systems are preferred over grass-roots bottom-up ones; and possibilities for reducing human vulnerability are being ignored in favor of programs that aim to reduce risks or lessen the vulnerability of built structures and infrastructures. Preferences for the use of sophisticated technologies that are intended to quarantine terrorism and minimize its consequences far outnumber efforts to engage with the messier realm of ideas and behaviors related to terrorism. Yet it is the latter that shape the public interpretation of terrorism risks, structure patterns of exposure and affect the coping capabilities of threatened communities. Without substantial changes to policy that take account of these deficiencies, Americans are likely to find themselves little better prepared to confront the challenges of future terrorist attacks on targets in U.S. territory and the nation’s ability to address other kinds of hazards may be seriously compromised.
There is a current argument that “national security” and “national defense” are no longer synonymous terms-that there is a new and broader definition for the activities…
Abstract
There is a current argument that “national security” and “national defense” are no longer synonymous terms-that there is a new and broader definition for the activities that contribute to “the common defense.“ A whole of government approach is suggested as a means for integrating and coordinating national security policies and programs. To support this approach, recommendations have been made for an integrated national security budget. Focusing on the executive budget process, three approaches to an integrated national security budget are examined: organization-based, program-based and function-based. Though there are questions about the importance of budget structure and the effectiveness of program budgeting, a whole of government integrated unified national security budget could facilitate the fiscal trade-offs required between alternative means of pursuing national security objectives in the executive budget.
The purpose of this paper is to explicate the influence of US national security approach on the Thai Government's national security, the criticisms on the US and Thai…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explicate the influence of US national security approach on the Thai Government's national security, the criticisms on the US and Thai intelligence communities and ethical debates on national databases, including the introduction of the concepts of “spiritual computing” and Buddhism to the ethical aspect of intelligence databases.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology of this paper is based on the interpretative approach which includes literature survey and interviews of the intelligence community (IC) in Thailand. The relevant literature survey consists of the literature on US intelligence databases for Homeland Security, criticisms of the IC, the ethical debate on national databases in the USA, the Thai National Security Council, ethical debates on the Internal Security Act and Computer Crime Act, Buddhism and “spiritual computing.”
Findings
The findings reflect that the US model of national security has significant influence on the Thai intelligence approach and application of IT for national security while both intelligence communities have similar intelligence problems and have raised ethical debates on violations of human rights.
Research limitations/implications
The research limitations include the nature of the topic which is a closed subject under legal restrictions in Thailand so that the sources of official information could not be disclosed nor elaborated in details; and literature on this topic has not been widely available except unclassified information which limits a more in‐depth investigation and analysis.
Originality/value
The value of this paper lies in being the first attempt to throw light on a “forbidden” subject in Thailand by discussing the US experiences against the Thai case study. The application of “spiritual computing” and Buddhist precepts to the context of national security and intelligence databases could be a starting point for developing a “happier” and “successful” IC and possibly open a new approach to national security.
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