Developing an Operational Measure of Bi-Directional Loyalty for Insider Threat
Theory and case studies have proposed that lower organizational commitment, or the degree to which an employee is committed to the organization that they work for, is linked to a greater likelihood of insider threat. However, no prior empirical work tested this assumption. MITRE behavioral scientists and insider threat subject matter experts completed a scientific literature review to develop a better understanding of what organizational commitment is, to analyze the applicability of organizational commitment for insider risk, and to develop observable measures effective for insider threat deterrence, detection, and mitigation. MITRE’s researchers concluded that organizational commitment is not a suitable term to capture the concept of interest and created the new concept of Bi-Directional Loyalty (BDL) which is more applicable to insider threat. MITRE defines “Bi-Directional Loyalty” as: when an organization and employee demonstrate a positive relationship of mutual reliance and overlapping goals, values, and outcomes. Identifying that BDL is a more suitable and more practical measure of risk than organizational commitment, we are developing and testing methods to measure BDL, and creating a research plan to validate the relationship between BDL and insider threat. Our team has created and assessed the validity of both an employee-report and a manager-report BDL scale to determine if this concept can be measured directly and indirectly.
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