Abstract
This paper explores the role of internal communication in one under-researched form of organizational crisis, insider threat – threat to an organization, its people or resources, from those who have legitimate access. In this case study, we examine a high security organization, drawing from in-depth interviews with management and employees concerning the organizational context and a real-life incident of insider threat. We identify the importance of three communication flows (top-down, bottom-up, and lateral) in explaining, and in this case, enabling, insider threat. Derived from this analysis, we draw implications for communication and security scholars, as well as practitioners, concerning: the impact of unintentional communication, the consequences of selective silence and the divergence in levels of shared understanding of security among different groups within an organization.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 467-495 |
| Number of pages | 29 |
| Journal | Management Communication Quarterly |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| Early online date | 14 Jan 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Aug 2022 |
Bibliographical note
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).Keywords
- crisis and risk management
- employee misconduct
- interpretive case study
- organizational communication
Institute themes
- Security and Resilience