On the Inattention to Digital Confidentiality in Operations and Supply Chain Research

Abstract

D igital assets are growing in scale, scope, and importance, amplifying the necessity to maintain their confidentiality.Yet, digital confidentiality has received vastly less research attention from operations and supply chain management (OSCM) scholars than cost, quality, flexibility, delivery, and innovation. We contend that this lack of attention has, at least partly, produced recommendations that ultimately could harm digital confidentiality performance. To guide future research, we synthesize relevant gaps across the OSCM and information systems literatures and discuss relevant OSCM research opportunities. Many of these opportunities are articulated as propositions. We also discuss contemporary industry practices aimed at upholding digital confidentiality. We call for the OSCM community to consistently and explicitly examine digital confidentiality as a performance dimension, and argue that failure to heed this call will be detrimental to our field's influence and relevance as digital assets continue to increase in value relative to physical ones.

Supersize me? Franchisee size and voluntary compliance with corporate brand‐building initiatives

“…To this end, our findings also may apply to those issues. Similar compliance difficulties also have been noted in other industrial contexts, such as manufacturing or project management (Anand et al, ; Gray et al, ), information security (Herath & Rao, ; Massimino, Gray, & Lan, ) and healthcare (Staats et al, ), making the issues we consider here potentially relevant. Second, our context's large national franchise network provides robust sample sizes and ample variance in hypothesized factors.…”

The effects of product development network positions on product performance and confidentiality performance

“…This leads to firms pursuing product performance to rely on external partners for timely access to advanced knowledge and technologies (Dedrick, Kraemer, & Linden, 2010). Second, product design and development almost exclusively involve digital media, making confidentiality protection more difficult, and ostensibly more critical, than in manufacturing contexts (Massimino et al, 2018). Third, confidentiality performance is paramount as confidentiality losses may severely erode product sales and revenue streams (Craig, 2005; Gomes, Cerqueira, & Almeida, 2015; Han et al, 2014; Lu et al, 2019; Ma et al, 2014).…”

“…Third, confidentiality performance is paramount as confidentiality losses may severely erode product sales and revenue streams (Craig, 2005; Gomes, Cerqueira, & Almeida, 2015; Han et al, 2014; Lu et al, 2019; Ma et al, 2014). Fourth, confidentiality losses (i.e., when the product is leaked to an illegal‐channel market) can be reliably identified in this industry (Craig, 2005; Massimino et al, 2017), remedying a nontrivial data‐availability problem facing similar empirical research (Massimino et al, 2018). Fifth, this industry has available measures of product performance.…”

“…They fail, however, to account for indirectly connected firms, which could acquire digital assets such as EVGs. Unfortunately, the current confidentiality protection literature has neglected such multi‐organizational product development ties (Massimino et al, 2018), the primary focus of our research.…”

“…Once a product's confidentiality has been lost, moreover, its subsequent diffusion or reproduction can be extremely difficult to prevent (Katila, Rosenberger, & Eisenhardt, 2008). Consequently, confidentiality performance may now, or in the very near future, rival the importance of product performance as industries continue their digital transformations (Massimino, Gray, & Lan, 2018). Despite calls for more research (Collins & Hansen, 2011; Kelly, 2018; Parker, Van Alstyne, & Choudary, 2016; Valdes‐Dapena, 2013; Zetter, 2015), very few studies have examined the relationship between product development networks and confidentiality outcomes.…”