Enhanced Information Management in Inter-organisational Planning for Critical Infrastructure Protection: Case and Framework

Abstract

This paper develops an analytical framework to assess information in planning for critical infrastructure protection (CIP). Critical infrastructure concerns various societal functions that ensure the daily life, endurance and progress of societies. Thus, CIP involves a considerable number of actors in a multi-level planning that relies on inter-organisational information sharing. Based on a Swedish case of CIP, this study aims to foster information assessment and management that bridge the inherent conflicts between information sharing and information security in CIP. Analyses of the information alongside the Swedish STYREL process first exemplify crucial deficiencies in the inter-organisational, national emergency response planning and then specify a set of dimensions and attributes as baseline for assessing information and information processing in CIP. Four stages in the Swedish approach cause a filtering and altering of information that affect the quality of decisions alongside the process and the emergency response plan that relies on them. By assessing the information basis in this large-scale approach, the paper contributes evidence-based foundations for information management in inter-organisational settings, such as the multi-level planning for CIP.