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Data collection and analysis
Data collection and analysisCHAPTER FOUR
RESULTS
This chapter presents data collection and analysis of chats and calculation of means and standard deviations from the employee and leaders answers. The analysis of the results from the research questions given by the employees and leaders are also provided in this chapter. The research was carried out on both the employers and their leaders as well to establish how the leadership style of the leaders impacted on the employee’s performance and how the employees viewed how they were lead. The study also provided an opportunity to understand which of the leadership styles were applied when applying any change to the institution by most of the leaders interviewed.
The leaders experienced varied opinions on their on the level of confidence when proposing a major change at their institution. From the results presented, an overwhelming 80% of the leaders agreed that they had confidence when proposing a change. 50% agreed that they had confidence when proposing the changes another 38.1% strongly agreed that they had confidence whenever proposing a change. This is represented in the pie chart below
On optimism when proposing a change, the results were as shown in the chart below
Treating each subordinate as an individual with different needs was another aspect of leadership in which the leaders gave varied opinions. The chat below indicates that over 90% of the leaders agreed that they treat each subordinate as an individual with different needs when proposing a change.
Treating each subordinate as an individual with different abilities was also another area tackled and 50% of the leaders agreed that they treated their employee as individuals with different abilities and another 50% strongly agreed to that as shown in the chart below.
Consideration of the subordinate aspiration at work gave mixed opinion among the leaders as 47% and 38% of the leaders agreed and strongly agreed that they had to put that into consideration when proposing a change. This is also reflected in the chart below.
61% of the leaders strongly agreed that they behave in a way that is consistent with the ideals and values they espouse and another 31% of the leaders agreed with the same as shown in the chat below.
Rewarding subordinate for effective performance also gave varied results as shown in the table below with 50% and 47% of the leaders agreeing and strongly agreeing respectively that they rewarded their subordinate for good performance.
. 85% and 9% of the leaders respectively agreed and strongly agreed that encourage communication between the team members in order to facilitate good working relationship at their respective institutions. This is presented in the chart below.
The chat below represents the opinion of the leaders on how they advanced team members to a higher level of morale and motivation with 65% and 35% of the leaders strongly agreeing and agreeing respectively.
The chart below show how value for justice was presented by the leaders with 78% and 19% of the leaders strongly agreeing and agreeing respectively that they valued justice.
Encouraging team members was another aspect that was dealt with. The chat below gives a presentation of their views with 67% strongly agreeing and 33% agreeing that they encouraged team work
The chat below shows a presentation on the response of the leaders if in any case they were role models to their team members. 4.8% disagreed,42% agreeing and 23% strongly agreeing.
Encouraging members to develop creativity and innovation was also another aspect dealt with and the response is presented in the chat below/
The chat below shows the leaders response on whether they enlisted the team members in a common vision
The employees on the other hand where asked on different matters relating on how they relate with their managers at work. The chats below show their responses to different questions.
The chart below is a presentation of the employees’ response on whether their managers encourage them when in difficult or stressful situation.
The chat below is a presentation of the employees’ responses on whether their managers provide them with support when in difficult or stressful situation.
The chat below is a presentation of the employees’ responses on whether their managers provide opportunities to develop their skills.
The chat below presents the response of each employee on whether his or her manager describes a clear, appealing vision of what the organization can accomplish or become
The pie chart below is presentation of the employee response on whether their managers motivate them.
The employees also had varied responses on whether their manger provided advice to help them develop new skills. Their responses are as presented in the chart below.
The chat below represents findings on whether the managers explains to the employees what must be done to get rewards such as promotion
The employees were also asked on whether their managers were trustworthy and their response as presented in the chat below.
The chat below is a presentation of employee response when asked if their managers in any way inspired them
The chat below is a presentation of employee response when asked if the manager in any way provided them with opportunity to exercise managerial roles and tasks.
The chat below is a presentation of employee response when asked whether they wanted to emulate the qualities of their managers as the process of change continued.
The chat below is a presentation of the employee response on how they felt challenged during the process of change.
The loyalty of the employees to their managers during the process of change was also put into perspective and the employee response presented as shown in the chat below to establish whether the loyalty increased or decreased during the process of change.
The chat below chows a presentation of responses by employees on whether the managers had persuasive skills when implementing change
The ability of the manager to makes their employees accept all aspects of change in their organization were also viewed and the employee response presented as shown in the chat below.
The chat below is a presentation of their responses on whether their mangers influenced their self esteem (positively or negatively
The summary for the mean and standard deviation results for the employee answers are as shown in the table below.
Employee Feedback Mean Standard Deviation
Strongly Disagree 8 16
Disagree 8 15.1921
Neither 8 29.4822
Agree 8 132.5009
Strongly Agree 8 188.8536
The summary for the mean and standard deviation results for the Leader answers are shown in the table below.
Leader Results Mean Standard Deviation
Strongly Disagree 12 9.265
Disagree 12 7.154
Neither 12 6.471
Agree 12 16.176
Strongly Agree 12 6.200
Components of a Modern Work Environment
Kylie Vizier
Lejeune
English 101
4/15/18Components of a Modern Work Environment
Every modern working environment consists of a lot of people who walk in and out of the business premises or the organization’s offices. The different types of people have a different interest within the organization and as such, they visit the premises to conduct different types of activities which are defined according to the purpose of results of the visit. Ideally, there are significant motives that drive people to visit a given formal establishment. In the organization in which I work, a different type of people including workers and customers. Each individual portrays a different interest within the organization. As such, one can make use of classification or division to categorize the different individuals.
For the purposes of this paper, classification or division strategies will be used to define the different types of people who visit the business establishment where I work. However, the paper will focus solely on the back end of the operations which are not open to each and every individual. The term back-end alludes to the nature of the business operations which are not accessible by the client. Consumers are always concerned with the product and not the production. For the evaluation of this specific business environment, the back end will be considered with the specific interested parties which enable the provision of business services to the consumers.
The business establishment that I work in is concerned with the provision of internet services to homeowners or residential consumers and office spaces in the central business district of a nearby town. Ideally, the business is attracting a lot of people who have different interests in the business. However, within the perspective of production, that is the delivery of business services, only three type of people are concerned with such. The three groups of people include the outsourced personnel, investors and the employees. Each of these groups presents a specific interest in the business and prove to be important parts of the whole process of accomplishing various business operations.
The first individuals to consider are the employees. The employees form the most important part of the business. Employees are at the core of the business operations. They perform different duties as described in their job description or according to the situation at hand. These employees include the subordinate and business managers. All employees have different roles within the business organization. Their roles, duties and responsibilities include customer care, finance, human resources management, security, ICT, audit among others. The sole interest of the employees falls upon the financial benefit that is awarded to them at the end of every month with regard to the nature and quantity of the services provided. Some employees work on a full-time basis while others work part-time.
Another party that comes into the premises of the business organization are the investors. Investors are people who finance the various business operations in return they are given shares in the business establishment. Each investor has a significant amount of shares under his or her name. Ideally, each investor owns a part of the business. As such, the interest the investor has in the business is much understood and significant to the business itself. Therefore, investors play a very important role in the business. In view of this, investors come into the premises of the business establishment solely for the purpose of looking at their interests in the organization. This might range from looking at the current state of business operations to see if they are being conducted in the right manner up to the consumer’s satisfaction. To an investor, better satisfactory provision of services translates to an increasing number of consumers which translates to more sales and finally more profits. This brings the discussion to the issue of what do the investors have to gain.
The benefit of the investors comes when the company declares the number of profits made for a given financial year. After all business costs are catered for, part of the net income for the organization may be divided into different sections which may be used for growing the business and some to pay off the investors through the annual dividend. The investors are therefore benefiting in a financial way from the business organization. Their financial benefit is a result of the financial input they have placed in the organization. Apart from the dividend that they receive annually, quarterly or semi-annually, the investors also profit form the organization through the sale of stock market shares. The shares they hold in the organization are quite significant as they represent that the investor owns a part of the business. According to the value of the business organization with respect to its profitability, the price of the shares rises considerably making it economical to sell the shares while their prices are at the highest in a long while.
The last component of the discussion is the outsourced personnel. Businesses in the modern world face different additional needs during the conduct of their daily operations. These additional needs are met by outsourced services from other businesses. These services may include the cleaning a security of the office premises. In view of these needs, the organization outsources the providers of related services in exchange for an agreed upon fee as a payment for services rendered. Outsources personnel present another group of the people who walk in and out of the premises of the business organization.
Indeed, an organization has different types of people moving in and out of their business premises. Apart from the group that comes to consumer services offer by the organization, the other groups of people are namely the investors, outsourced personnel and the employees. Each of these groups is related to the operations of the organization in one way on another. Their absence will be noted or significantly felt by other groups in the organization. As such, the role played by each party and their interest in the organization is detrimental to the successful completion of the operations.
Data breach
Data breach
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INTRODUCTION
It is evident from the history of data breaches that there is an increase in the posting of sensitive information publicly on websites of federal, state and city governments. A number of other researches such as the existing research on privacy- preserving data publishing that center on relational data also show the existence of this increase in information breach. Therefore, government agencies and commercial organizations responsible for reporting data are left with an important duty of representing the data in a significant manner and to simultaneously offer safety for the confidentiality of critical components of this data (Ghinita, Kalnis & Tao, 2011, Glover et al. 2011).
The subject of organizing and disseminating data in a form that avoids sensitive components of information from being understood or hacked by groups allied to corporate spying thus remains a challenge. At present, data sharing amid diverse parties cannot be avoided in various applications like decision support, policy development and others. However, data comprises of person specific sensitive information in its raw format. As a result, publishing data without appropriate security might expose or endanger individual privacy. This shows that there has to be fundamental trade-off amid individual privacy and the use of published data. (Glover et al. 2011, Chen 2012).
In federal government, up to 35 percent of popular identity theft caused by corporate data breaches in the year 2005 was identified in the United States. The panel data from the United States Federal Trade Commission was employed from the year of 2002 to 2009 to approximate the effect of data breach disclosure laws on identity theft. Nevertheless, the analysis of federal privacy legislations in U.S showed various kinds of sensitive consumer data that are subject to important data protection. Good examples are where the federal statutes set minimum information privacy requirements for web sites, financial institution, health care providers and credit reporting agencies. Websites and financial institutions deal with personal information about their customers while health care gathers personal information concerning patients. Credit reporting agencies gather information concerning credit histories of consumers. In spite of the laws and regulations already in place, the scope of the law is limited to practices of particular industries when privacy and security is authorized for these sensitive personal data (King & raja, 2012, Romanosky, Telang &Acquisti, 2011).
According to TechAmerica Foundation, 75 percent of state information technology officials say that big data can have an immediate impact on how government operates. Another 61 percent of the state IT officials also strongly agree that big data can improve social and welfare services in the perspective of data security. There are different kinds of data breaches at different levels that have been reported from various states in the U.S.A. The California State University, for example, notified individuals of data breach that took place on August, 2014 concerning unauthorized access to individual information. In this case, an overseas IP address appeared to have used a tool developed to access information from the server without being detected (TAF, 2013, PRC, 2013).
Many states have also responded by approving data breach disclosure laws that call for firms to notify consumers if their personal information has been stolen or lost. The member state governments have also extended special protection to other categories of personal data which they deem sensitive to include concerning debts of consumers, financial or payment of welfare benefits. The states discrimination laws may also offer extra secured categories of personal information that are not prohibited under federal law like the sexual orientation. Many states have breach notification ruling that call for companies to inform consumers of safety breaches that may endanger personal data. There are also the state tort laws that offer further information regarding privacy protection for clients. However, the applicability of tort laws to tackle company failures in offering security for sensitive data is not yet certain ( Romanosky, Telang &Acquisti, 2011).
Data breaches are also experienced in city governments as well. Provoko City School District, for instance, informed employees on Sep, 2014 of an attack that permitted access to employees email accounts. Some email accounts had files that might had personal identifiable information. The city officials of Los Angeles are also on record insisting that the contract provision in the cloud service agreement require that its data remain in the United States. This is because the city did not want to run the risk of city government data channeled to computer servers in different countries. The reason for this contract requirement is due to the fact that the security risks of cloud computing that is used currently are just too high for sensitive data. It is also reported that at least one of the cities has insisted on cloud service agreement that restricts the cloud provider from transferring the city’s data to servers outside the United States. In this case, I can deduce from my own opinion that there are still legislation gaps that open avenues for this insecurity within the cloud computing (King & raja, 2012, PRC, 2013).
The issue of data breaches is therefore due to inadequate information privacy laws and legislations that govern service providers on sharing sensitive information. It is clear in this scenario, that the laws of countries such as Europe at large and the United States, are at present not clear and difficult to answer as far as their applicability to cloud computing is concerned. This difficulty comes due to the fact that the exact location where data is stored within the cloud is not only unfamiliar to many, but also subject to change in time (King & raja, 2012). Considering the extent of all the breaches in the three areas of government, this paper will mainly provide a proposal that is necessary for the solution of problems of frequent inadvertent publication of sensitive information. The remaining section consists of brief literature review, information security framework process and conclusion in that order.
PROBLEM
Problem Statement
Private and sensitive information from external stakeholders is not fully secured at the three levels of government, namely, Federal, City and State.
Significance of the problem and potential benefits
Security of sensitive information in the network is very important when it comes to putting all the three government levels together. Therefore, understanding the importance attached to such information will help a lot especially in collecting the right data, analysis of the data and in designing of the most appropriate solution for the problem.
In a nut shell, if this problem is solved as per the significance discussed in the paragraph above, the benefits directly goes to the stakeholders who will enjoy high security for their sensitive information. Similarly, working with the service providers like cloud computing becomes easier.
Proposal Goals
The main aim of this proposal is to come up with the most optimum solution that will address the high security desired by different government levels. This will also satisfy all other stakeholders but in relation to the laid down regulations and laws that govern the information use.
Proposal Objectives
To use the right methodology and design of the solution that will best solve the problem at hand.
LITERATURE REVIEW
This part will address issues concerning data security, aspects of technology as well as management aspects.
Data security
There are two categories of data to consider under this aspect. One is personal (proprietary) sensitive data which should only be accessed by the specified person(s). This type of data should be given high level of security at all cost. Second is the shared data. This type of data should be accessible to all the stakeholders involved. In the case of business or company data, every partner needs to have access to critical business information concerning products, finances, marketing among others. The same case applies to government data which should only be available to the respective government agencies when required. Another proposal is that confidential information might be incorrectly shared amid partners, individuals, companies, governments and other institutions, leading into direct information leakage. The leakage might be due to companies and/or institutions with strong motivations and extra capabilities to gather examine, obtain and use information from others for the purpose of achieving competitive benefit. Getting the right of entry to such information also results to erroneous conclusion. (Zhang et al., 2011, Roy & Kundu, 2012).
Technological features
The effective implementation of information security system is associated with the kind of technologies used. According to Gunesekaran and Ngai (2004) cited in (Roy and Kundu, 2011), the proposal that enough attention has not been paid to design and implementation of Information Technology systems for effective information sharing very evident. Thorough design and implementation of information security system is the best way of reducing information security threats. There should also be a model for decision Information Security in order to build a network security management system for stakeholders. This network system ought to have confidentiality, authentication and availability features (Wadhwa et al., 2009).
According to Smith et al. (2008) cited in (Roy & Kundu, 2011), collaboration facilitated by means of information technology has improved the service of customers. In addition, the collaboration has improved satisfaction by allowing sharing of information for decision making for efficiency purposes. Nonetheless, this collaboration has also contributed to increased vulnerability to various information technology threats like malware, unauthorized access, hacking among others. Therefore, the idea that requirements for secure network application systems include but not limited to features like identification, authentication, privacy and integrity is very important to consider. Ajayi & Maharaj (2010) cited in (Roy & Kundu, 2011) also describes a wide variety of e-business technologies which have opened new avenues in SCM. These technologies, however, have increased threats and risk of information flows. This information flow can be changed or customized there by increasing the related threats.
Managerial features
This part briefly explains management related aspects as well as data security features in combination with technology features. Knite (2003) cited in (Roy & Kundu 2011) recognizes the fact that various components associated with information security risks within the network sites, that is, physical security, human resource security, data security, access control, incident reporting and investigation including many others are required for effective management of sensitive information within the network system. Greater collaboration on tackling these security concerns are needed by the global multi-vendor supply chains common at present.
The proposal of efficient co-ordination for client satisfaction in addition to upholding competency is also important across the information network. This kind of co-ordination calls for sophisticated flow of information, materials as well as funds across several functional areas both within and among the stakeholder partners according to Faisal et al., (2006) cited in (Roy & Kundu, 2011). In this circumstance, management approaches will be affected by both manmade and natural tragedies in the perspective of supply chains since organizations currently depend on their partners spreading across many nations and continents. Therefore, as part of business continuity plans which is very important, protection of sensitive information should be assured (Roy and Kundu, 2011).
Another proposal is on joint management by companies, institutions or governments. This is presented by Anand and Goyal (2009) cited in (Roy & Kundu, 2011) whereby the authors argued that data associated with leakage of information exists across a number of industries. As a result, the firm’s functional optimizing material flows might override the optimizing information flow. Consequently, the situation requires joint management.
Summary of findings from literature review
The leakage of information as well as the misuse occurs in the network site due to poor design of network system. Another reason that leads to this leakage is weak legislative laws for governing exchange of sensitive information between any two entities within the network. The gaps that exists amid service providers like cloud computing and the government laws is the result of such kind of weak laws. The information leakage and misuse can thus lead to demand imperative which might override information imperative. It can also result to firms losing their competitive edge. The increase in risk intrusion, data loss and reduced network availability can be due to vulnerability in network support infrastructure which may not be controlled sufficiently. Sometimes human resource needs in connection to information security may be overlooked. Last but not least, compromise of knowledge generation may also exist to compromise in reliability of information (Roy & Kundu, 2011).
SOLUTION APPROACH
Plan
Having looked at a number of features associated with information security from the previous section, it is apparent that enough has not been done to optimally design and implement a highly reliable network system of information in order to solve the concerns raised. As far as the discussion is concerned, a better proposal is to come up with an enhanced integrated process framework system of state, federal and city government. The integrated framework system will help to establish, monitor, implement and even sustain the management system for tackling information security of the stakeholders’ network infrastructure. The integrated system will also make management easier for the three types of government in the United States. In addition, it is likely to lower the overall cost of operation since few administrators will be needed as compared to the current system. As a result, this will increase savings from reduced salary budget.
The integrated process framework helps to achieve reliable set of practices for execution at whichever organization or government level. This kind of implementation permits the government or even the stakeholder companies and organizations to administer their key practices, roles as well as responsibilities. It will also align processes along with improvement of performance by means of corporate strategy. The implementation also facilitates standardizing against best practices as well as integration of business and even government processes. The employment of this type of framework is also expected to efficiently lower the required time to come up with consensus among the integrated system stakeholders. This process framework can be developed traditionally depending on the wide comprehension of different government operations and their experience from several stakeholder organizations (American Productivity & Quality Center, 2011).
In general, it is proposed to analyze diverse processes and operations of the three types of governments and other associated organizations in order to set up relationship with stakeholder performance metrics and information security by means of looking at information security threats in all the identified processes. The framework to be implemented is a kind of life cycle process that is repetitive in nature.
4.2 Steps to be followed
The first phase is to identify processes and operations involved followed by identification of threats and vulnerabilities across the stakeholders. The third step is to develop multi-criteria based analysis approach where by all facts collected previously are examined. The forth step is to evaluate threats across all stakeholders followed by examining the association between stake holder performance metrics and information security. The sixth step involves validating the framework and finally refining the framework. In this case, the cycle becomes repetitive only if the problems still arise after refinement (American Productivity & Quality Centre, 2011).
Challenges
To begin with, coming up with a solution that will satisfy all the stakeholders is not that easy as all of them have different tastes and standards as well. Secondly, with reference to the introduction given in this excerpt, there exists a very big constitutional gap between the service providers and the government in terms of laws and regulations governing information security. This means that the implementation of the proposed system will also call for the amendment of the existing laws.
Limitations
The implementation of the proposed solution is limited to the laws and regulations governing information security. In addition, the implementation is only limited to the three levels of government.
Deliverables
The end product of this proposal is to hand over the plan to the concerned stakeholders. This plan should specify the exact procedure in terms of the architectural framework required for the implementation of the solution as designed.
Conclusion
The framework proposed above affects all the stakeholder organizations, government and company in relation to their daily business operations. However, it is unlucky that information security is habitually treated exclusively as a technology concern. The governance and personnel problems are treated as evenly significant. The development of integrated process framework is proposed to look at these concerns along with evolving and maintaining reliable operations. This proposal also assures the information security management at all levels of stakeholders within the framework.
References
American Productivity & Quality Centre. (2011). Using Process Frameworks and Reference Models: to get real work done. APQC Best Practices Report.
Chen, R. (2012). Toward Privacy in High-Dimensional Data Publishing (Doctoral dissertation, Concordia University).
Ghinita, G., Kalnis, P., & Tao, Y. (2011).Anonymous publication of sensitive transactional data.Knowledge and Data Engineering, IEEE Transactions on, 23(2), 161-174.
Glover, F., Cox, L. H., Patil, R., & Kelly, J. P. (2011). Integrated exact, hybrid and metaheuristic learning methods for confidentiality protection. Annals of Operations Research, 183(1), 47-73.
in Flexible Supply Chain Network: A Decision Information Security (DIS) Model Global Journal of Enterprise Information System, Vol. 1, No. 2, 25-31
King, N. J., & Raja, V. T. (2012). Protecting the privacy and security of sensitive customer data in the cloud. Computer Law & Security Review, 28(3), 308-319.
PRC-Privacy Rights Clearing House. (2013).Chronology of data breaches. Retrieved on 13th Oct, 2014 from, http://www.privacyrights.org/data-breachRomanosky, S., Telang, R., &Acquisti, A. (2011). Do data breach disclosure laws reduce identity theft.Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 30(2), 256-286.
Roy, A., & Kundu, A. (2012, June). Management of information security in supply chains–a process framework. In Computers and Industrial Engineering 42.
TAF-TechAmerica Foundation. (2013). Big data for state and local government. Beyond the Hype.
Wadhwa S. Prakash A., Deshmukh S.G. and Wadhwa B. (2009). Information Security
Zhang D.Y., Zeng Y., Wang L., Li H. and Geng Y. (2011). Modeling and evaluating information leakage caused by inferences in Supply Chains. Computers in Industry, Vol. 62, No. 3, 351-363.