Drivers of cybersecurity improvements in local government: Capacity-building, collaboration and their timing
基于瑞典市政调查数据，研究发现内部能力建设（如增加首席信息安全官时间）和通过全国性协会的协作能提升网络安全成熟度，但邻近市镇协作无效；且能力建设在早期关键，协作在后期更重要。
Public organisations are struggling with the urgent need to increase their cybersecurity, i.e. the protection of information and information systems. The aim of this article is to examine how cybersecurity maturity in local government is improved through internal capacity-building and inter-municipal collaboration (IMC), and how the effectiveness of these strategies depends on the timing of their deployment in the development of organisational capacity. Using a two-wave survey of Swedish municipalities (2019 and 2023), we find that internal capacity-building (operationalised as the time allocated to Chief Information Security Officers, CISOs) and IMC through the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR) are associated with improvements in cybersecurity maturity, but collaboration with neighbouring municipalities is not. Moreover, the timing of these factors matters. Internal capacity-building through increasing the time allocated to the CISO is key at an early stage, while IMC through SALAR becomes more important as cybersecurity improves. Our work suggests that the level of maturity of cybersecurity capacity moderates the effect of collaboration on further improvement of cybersecurity, as higher cybersecurity capacity raises the ability to identify the problems at hand, which information from external actors is relevant and how this information should best be applied to meet local needs.