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Cyber-security incidents show how difficult it is to make optimal strategic decisions in such a complex environment. Given that it is hard for researchers to observe organisations’ decision-making processes driving cyber-security strategy, we developed a board game that mimics this real-life environment and shows the challenges of decision-making. We observed cyber-security experts participating in the game. The results showed that decision-makers who performed poorly tended to employ heuristics, leading to fallacious decision approaches (overreaction strategies in place of proactive ones), and were not always aware of their poor performances. We advocate the need for decision support tools that capture this complex dynamic nature.

Why is it that, despite the large amount of studies on IT governance, many professionals still fail to put these theories into practice? Building on the previous question, we reviewed the literature to examine how organizational learning theories can help in understanding the gap between the ‘theory' and ‘practice' of IT governance. Thereafter, a focus group discussed this gap within the context of Industry 4.0. The findings indicate important concerns that might hinder learning in organizations, including: lack of shared domain knowledge between business and IT stakeholders, lack of shared understanding and poor diffusion of IT governance practices in the organization. Unless these concerns are successfully resolved, executives will experience difficulties to govern IT successfully within the context of Industry 4.0. We provide recommendations to practitioners with regards to the capabilities which should be present in the organisation to overcome such concerns. These capabilities represent a T-shaped portfolio of skills.

PurposeThe co‐orientation model is used as a vehicle for framing the perceptions of different stakeholder groups. This study aims to operationalize the principles of sustainable development in the chain‐of‐custody and measure two selected stakeholder groups' perceptions of their importance.Design/methodology/approachThe co‐orientation model provides guidance for improving communications and stakeholder relationships by identifying different co‐orientation states of the communicating parties. The implications for the development of effective sustainability communication strategies for organizations are discussed.FindingsSustainability communications requires a systematic approach in which all the communication activities are directed toward achieving increased understanding between the organization and its relevant stakeholders about the issues. The co‐orientation model enables the identification of unique initiatives to overcome the communication problems caused by the different co‐orientation states. This insight can be utilized by communication managers to fine‐tune their organization's communication strategy to be more sensitive to the specific requirements of the communication situation. Some of the recommendations to manage the communication process include assumption surfacing, orgainzational reflection, improved stakeholder management and dialogue.Originality/valueThe co‐orientation model is a quite complex concept. This study tries to use the model in a concret case and develops different approaches for improving communications and stakeholder relationships by identifying different co‐orientation states of the communicating parties.

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