HICSS Digital Government Symposium on Co-creating value in cybersecurity policy

Description

Proposal Symposium HICSS 2024

Digital Government Track

Co-creating value in cybersecurity policy 

January 2^nd 2024, Room Sea Pearl 2

Proposed by: Greta Nasi, Colin MacArthurs, Maria Cucciniello,  Bocconi University

and Richard Harknett, University of Cincinnati

Scope of the symposium

Despite the current domain-specific policy frames, the state, the economy, individuals and broader society all come into tension within the interconnected environment of cyberspace.

The strategic cyber environment affected by governments changes the opportunity and risk-benefit for business, affecting both firm and country-wide economic competitiveness. Governments and individuals are attempting to balance security, liberty and privacy in cyberspace.And in this strategic environment, with blurring boundaries, societies can question their relationship with and trust of government. For governments to effectively balance all these tensions, they must set outcomes that acknowledge the interests of all these actors and move away from the existing myopic frames. The strategic environment of cyberspace pervades all policy domains (Cavelty M.D., and Egloff M.J. 2019).  Because cyberspace is a new strategic environment, we have to reconsider the policy in all those domains.

The tensions inherent in cyberspace require new approaches to framing the purpose of policymaking. In this symposium, we discuss how the wide constellation of actors in this tense environment challenges how governments set the purposes of the policy, which has to be informed by public administration theory. This literature argues that government impact requires recognising that all actors are active participants in policy and service delivery processes and co-create value (Osborne, S.P., Radnor. Z., Nasi, G.; 2013; Osborne, 2021). Governments must realize that policy only creates value when actors use the policy, bringing their own efforts and experience. It’s through the actors’ behaviors, not only the government’s, that the policy ultimately has an impact  (Osborne, S.P., Nasi G., Powell M., 2021). The strategic environment of cyberspace makes this interconnected network of actors particularly visible. We argue that current government cyber strategies and policies do not take this perspective.

The scope of this symposium is therefore two fold:

• Discuss the state of the art of how government cybersecurity strategies and policies are framed
• Indentify the gaps and discuss the way forward. 

We propose a symposium to build cross-disciplinary understanding about how to improve government cybersecurity in the context of the cyberspace where interconnected actors influence its impact. Our aim is to unpack the needs of public and private actors, firms and individuals in these areas. We will surface and highlight strategies that work from both sides of the ocean.   To do so, we will host a keynote speech, two talks and a rountable with all the three speakers.

Audience: academics and practitioners interested in digital government, cybersecurity, critical infrastructure protection, leaders and policy makers and the general public.

Αgenda of the symposium