Organizations, technology, and network risks: How and why organizations use technology to counter or cloak their human network vulnerabilities.

摘要

This dissertation is about organizational fault-tolerance and its implications for national security and business continuity. It investigates how technology effects organizational survival and performance in hostile and competitive environments. The study identifies how an organization's structure and processes involving technology-use relate to its mission and operating environment. By investigating how these relationships develop over time, the study identifies fault-tolerant and fault-intolerant humanly-managed network structures within organizations. It explains how these structures perform shaped by organizational mission, environment, and technology choices.;First, the study uses information theory and probabilistic information-entropy methods to identify missions and environments that implicitly predict contrasting organizational technology choices. Results generate dimensions for selecting two polar-opposite organization cases. Second, it uses organization theory and case-study methods to analyze technology choices made by the two organizations to implement their different missions in contrasting environments. A comparison of the two cases identifies alternative organizational approaches for structuring their networks and using technology to mitigate risks. These approaches also explain ways in which organizations may design their networks and use technology to reduce vulnerabilities or conceal them from adversaries.;The results uncover characteristics of organizational environments, missions, and structures that generate technology strategy options. Specifically, in environments dominated by a hostile opponent, organizations prioritize survival above performance. Network designs include adopting sparsely connected structures, restricting information, and relying on "lower-tech" physical interaction based solutions that support node independence and self-sufficiency and limit network traceability. In subversive networks and non-monetary missions, these strategies curb the initiating power of potential failure points concealing network structure from the opponent. Alternatively, in the absence of hostility, organizations focus on performance. Network strategies include adopting highly connected structures, distributing information, and integrating redundant components to support network traceability and facilitate broad reach and economies of scale. These strategies identify two contrasting network organization classes based on their structural fault-tolerance.;The thesis contributes to our understanding of how and why technology choices affect organizations. Results contribute to organization theory and analysis methods, with applications for counterterrorism and energy security, among other business and policy issues.