Understanding and Overcoming Information Sharing Failures

Crowther Kenneth G. ()
Additional contact information
Crowther Kenneth G.: MITRE Corporation – Homeland Security, 7515 Colshire Drive, McLean, VA 22102, USA

Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, 2014, vol. 11, issue 1, 131-154

Abstract: Despite improved data interoperability, common digital architectures, and massive connected digital networks, the same failures of information sharing occur again and again. This paper reviews the information sharing failures that caused or exacerbated major catastrophes – the attack on Pearl Harbor, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and Hurricane Katrina. An analysis of these failures reveals that they fall into only a couple of categories that reflect how organizations partner, communicate, synthesize, or make decisions. The results prompt a redefining of information sharing to capture these broader system notions, furthermore provides a foundation for identifying and explaining historic forms of collaboration that have led to both failures and successes. This paper also reviews the common information sharing safeguards that lead to shared understanding and collaborative outcomes. We map these safeguards against the failures for developing collaboration strategies, and classify them according to six basic systems engineering categories of governance, processes, operations, acceptance, performance measurement, and resource management. Our study of information sharing activities finds that some safeguards like oversight mechanisms or stakeholder management processes are more essential than others. These principles direct evaluation of information sharing activities to prevent these failures in future responses to complex threats.

Keywords: collaboration; collaborative outcomes; information sharing; infrastructure protection; lessons learned (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/jhsem-2013-0055 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:johsem:v:11:y:2014:i:1:p:131-154:n:4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/jhsem/html

DOI: 10.1515/jhsem-2013-0055

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management is currently edited by Irmak Renda-Tanali

More articles in Journal of Homeland Security and Emergency Management from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().