The Role of Strategic Security: Internal and External Security Measures with Security Performance Implications

Ensuring a supply chain is secure from intentional as well as unintentional incidents is critical in today's global economy. However, some firms place a greater level of strategic importance on supply chain security than others. This research compares firms in the food industry that place a high level of strategic importance on security to firms that do not place a high level of strategic importance on security. The research assesses the measures employed by each group and resulting performance. Findings indicate that firms considering security to be a strategic priority perceive higher levels of security implementation and better security performance. Firms that place a high strategic priority on security show a greater ability to detect and recover from security incidents both inside the firm and across the supply chain in comparison to firms that place a low strategic priority on security. Cluster analysis grouped firms into high and low security performance categories in a manner consistent with the strategic priority construct and demonstrates the security measures that are likely to define high and low security performance.