In information technology security as scored by management budget, the author examines information technology (IT) security in the context of organizational management, business, complexity leadership theories, and current IT security scholarship. Based on well-known organizational power and politics theory as well as accounting, budget, and management literature, the chapter examines what is known about the impact of power and politics on IT security and the importance of budgetary gamesmanship as illustrated by understanding that the budget as a game, the politics of allocation within an organization, the influence of budgetary bias and how it shapes what CISOs must understand and master, the unfunded mandate impediment through which each the organization picks winners and losers under the auspices of “doing more with less.” The author suggests a future framework for IT security-management-budget review that includes measures that track expenditure versus the power alignment and how to gauge the net effect on an organization's information-technology security posture.
