Decision making in the provision of security services

Abstract

Examines the processes used to make decisions about security operations within universities, analysing crime and financial data obtained from a sample of 21 UK universities, the security managers of seven of the sample universities having been interviewed. Only three indicators of the need for security were reported: internal crime, external crime and institution size. Of these, expenditure on security was significantly correlated (r = 0.42) only with internal crime. The security managers measured performance mainly by crime statistics. Presents a critique of this and an action/outcome matrix for security operations. Discusses the place of “disconfirming data” in this framework. No evidence was found in the study of a search for and use of such data. Puts forward various proposals for improving this type of decision process.

Citation

Baron, V. and van Zwanenberg, N. (1996), "Decision making in the provision of security services", Facilities, Vol. 14 No. 1/2, pp. 9-16. https://doi.org/10.1108/02632779610108521