Airports at risk: the impact of information sources on security decisions

Abstract

Security decisions in high risk organizations such as airports involve obtaining ongoing and frequent information about potential threats. Utilizing questionnaire survey data from a sample of airport employees in European Airports across the continent, we analyzed how both formal and informal sources of security information affect employee's decisions to comply with the security rules and directives. This led us to trace information network flows to assess its impact on the degree employees making security decisions comply or deviate with the prescribed security rules. The results of the multivariate analysis showed that security information obtained through formal and informal networks differentially determine if employee will comply or not with the rules. Information sources emanating from the informal network tends to encourage employees to be more flexible in their security decisions while formal sources lead to be more rigid with complying with rules and protocols. These results suggest that alongside the formal administrative structure of airports, there exists a diverse and pervasiveness set of informal communications networks that are a potent factor in determining airport security levels.

The social foundations of airport security

“…By accomplishing this, airport managers can claim that "throughput" increases, security costs decrease, and as the number of passengers flowing through the airport increases so do revenues! Yet, despite all the efforts to optimize man-machine interaction in the use of security technology, it is recognized that this approach is bounded as it ignores the non-machine social context within which security decisions are made (Kirschenbaum et al, 2013) as well as the employee's own degree of trust that the security devise is accurate (Worley et al, 2000). False alarms are not only software glitches due to probabilistic errors in programming but also in the uncertainty that affects the human operator perceptions.…”

“…This example is backed up by evidence that a majority of security decisions are indeed made in a group context, either by co-workers or teams (Kirschenbaum et al, 2012) and that it is the informal social networks that have the largest impact on influencing security decisions (Kirschenbaum et al, 2013). If we add to this the negotiating power of passengers at screening points (Kirschenbaum, 2014), the picture that emerges is not of a sterile logical and rational system but one that is embedded with what people normally do within an organizational setting!…”

“…The results showed that sampling employees from a broad spectrum of departments and occupations provided over seven hundred (700) descriptive items showing that both formal (rule oriented) and informal (social context) behavioral formats are present when security decisions are made. The repetitive patterns of behavior allowed us to suggest a generic model that could then be applied to a wide range of security related situations applicable for both security and nonsecurity employees (Kirschenbaum et al, 2013). What these descriptions clearly suggest is that even within the formal regulatory administrative framework of airports, actual real-time security behaviors may deviate from rules and regulations to adapt to local situational contexts.…”

Threat detection: a framework for security architects and designers of metropolitan rail systems

“…communicate): e.g. raising an alarm or calling in armed units in response to a detected threat (Kirschenbaum et al, 2012).…”

“…There is considerable academic literature in the domain of airport security focusing on diverse issues. Examples of research include framework for selecting the right baggage inspection systems (Blejcharova, Cheu, & Bina, 2012), comparison of various leadership models for checkpoints (Wetter, Laube, & Hofer, 2009), impact of information on security decisions at airports (Kirschenbaum, Mariani, Gulijk, Rapaport, & Lubazs, 2012), influence of weather conditions on security control process (Wetter, Lipphardt, & Hofer, 2010) and role played by human factors in detection of threats (Hofer & Wetter, 2012). However, studies show that findings in the domain of airport security are not entirely transferrable to the railway sector (Jenkins, Butterworth, & Gerston, 2010) as there are differences between these applications and their contexts.…”