V2010 Security Planning and Operations: A Social Network Study of Key Information Sharing Relationships

摘要

Ensuring adequate security for a major event, such as the Olympics and Paralympics Games, is a significant multi-year effort involving numerous federal, provincial, regional and municipal government partners, as well as a vast web of public, private and international stakeholders. The current study was undertaken to provide a Social Network Analysis of the flow of information (between interagency partners) on security-related issues prior to and during the Olympic Games. A chief goal of those mostly senior level officials involved in Olympic security planning was to acquire and convey information in order that sound decisions could be made. By measuring the structure of formal and informal relationships between interagency partners (e.g., who shared information with whom), this study assessed how well the leadership group was effectively collaborating to make decisions. Findings indicated prevalent attitudes favouring interpersonal, even inter-organizational, working relationships among the mostly senior-level officials involved. That is not to say that everyone occupied similar roles in the network with respect to information sharing however. This paper introduces a typology of nodes based on the roles some officials were thought to exhibit (e.g. transmitters, information sinks, expert brokers, and periphery). Examples include those who were on the receiving end of information, but neglected to utilize personal relationships to pass along the information they received. Others were faced with the need to continually make partners aware of the important role they had to play. Whilst others still were key brokers of information and intermediaries who linked communities together.