Taming Complexity in the Cybersecurity of Multihospital Systems: The Role of Enterprise-wide Data Analytics Platforms
Authors: Tanriverdi, Hüseyin; Kwon, Juhee; Im, Ghiyoung
Journal: MIS Quarterly (2025)
<jats:p>A widely accepted notion in cybersecurity practice and research posits that complexity is detrimental to cybersecurity. While this notion mainly focuses on IT, the prevalence of complexity extends beyond IT into organizational domains. Whether the assertion that complexity is detrimental to cybersecurity holds true when applied to organizational domains remains largely unexplored. Moreover, “complexity” and “complicatedness” are often used interchangeably to refer to a large number of interconnected components. We build on complexity science to distinguish the two terms: complexity arises from ad hoc, nonlinear interactions among interconnected components, whereas complicatedness arises from structured, linear interactions. The field lacks sufficient understanding of these distinctions and their implications for cybersecurity risks and mitigations. We theorize how an organization’s complicatedness and complexity in both IT and organizational domains influence cybersecurity breaches. Our context of empirical inquiry is multihospital systems (MHSs), a complex organizational form that uses IT in complex ways. Drawing on complexity science, we posit that complicatedness in med…