Information plays an essential role in supporting an organization's business; this information encounters any business's technology, people, and process aspects. In contrast, each aspect can risk an organization's information assets. Information traceability and accountability can play a significant role in controlling and protecting information assets. When individuals perceive accountability for each modification or change, they will behave systematically in their activities because they can expect their actions to impact others. A sense of information accountability increases the likelihood that people think about their behaviors in daily processes. However, if the accountability mechanism is insufficient, it can cause conflicts between information owners and employees. Previous works are based on the theories to increase the sense of information accountability and have efficient mechanisms. Moreover, improvement of the accountability mechanism is a concern because researchers rely on laboratory results, which is not enough to develop and have a systematic mechanism. Therefore, existing theories and explanations of information accountability tend to be unclear in practice.This study presents a qualitative case study focusing on information asset accountability among information owners and finding the practical tools and techniques to enforce the accountability. Data collection is carried out through ten semi-structured interviews among information owners who directly own information and make decisions related to classified information and controlling access levels. The interview questions were based on the increasing information asset accountability to reveal the influential factors that must be addressed. Data analysis discloses information owners’ requirements to increase the sense of accountability in an organization when it comes to information asset accountability. Key findings seem to be applying proper tools and processes such as verification and traceability to strengthen the information asset accountability within organizations. It also reveals the employee’s awareness and training to understand the information handling and processes. Employees get involved with processes by receiving training, clarifying their accountability expectations within information assets, and acknowledging the importance of their actions to secure critical information. The study's contribution provides an insight into the information accountability mechanism to identify the enforcement requirement from the information owner’s perspective. Based on the result of the study, it can raise the significance of accountability and traceability mechanisms to the information owners and provide input to maximize their information asset’s security level within the organization.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:his-21714 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Aalinejad, Elaheh |
| Publisher | Högskolan i Skövde, Institutionen för informationsteknologi |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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