The Role of Extraordinary Creativity in Response to Digital Threats

Maurizio Cavallari (2011), The Role of Extraordinary Creativity in Response to Digital Threats, Physica Verlag Heidelberg, ISBN: 978-3-7908-2631-9 Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework for exploring and studying extraordinary creativity when it comes to an organizational response to digital security. Three areas - inspiration, transformational leadership, and social capital - are argued to significantly impact the creative ability of IT professionals charged with the task of responding to digital security threats. Drawing from diverse literature, the framework offered has the potential to form a foundation for future research to enhance creativity to extraordinary levels when it comes to digital security. This paper identifies three major constructs contributing to an organization's ability to respond to extraordinarily creative digital attacks that threaten the integrity of the firm's ability to do business in a networked economy. At the individual level, inspiration is argued to affect the level, ordinary or extraordinary, of creativity IT professionals are capable of. Leadership, is also argued to affect an organization's creative responses. Social capital is introduced to account for the quality interactions that affect creative responses to digital threats.