An Introduction to the Special Issue on Numerical Techniques Meet with OR - Part II

The special issue: “Numerical Techniques Meet with OR” of the Foundations of Computing and Decision Sciences consists of two parts which are of the main theme of numerical techniques and their applications in multi-disciplinary areas. The first part of this special issue was already collected in the FCDS Vol. 46, issue 1. In this second part of our special issue editorial, a description of the special issue presents numerical methods which can be used as alternative techniques for Scientific Computing and led Operational Research applications in many fields for further investigation.

Conservation Criminology

Environmental crimes represent a significant global problem and range from the illegal dumping of e-waste and industrial-scale negligence to wildlife crime, such as the illegal taking of flora and fauna (poaching) and the illegal trade of wildlife products (e.g., ivory). Environmental crimes can have severe and long-lasting consequences by threatening sustainability and food supplies, contaminating ecosystems, and risking the health and well-being of natural environments, wildlife, and human communities. Given the profitability of environmental crimes, this form of offending has become attractive to organized crime syndicates, leading to corruption and the removal of valuable socioeconomic resources from vulnerable communities. Until the introduction of green criminology in recent decades, environmental crimes were considered to fall under the remit of the hard sciences. Conservation criminology is a branch of green criminology. Conservation criminology is a multidisciplinary framework that draws together theories, tools, and methodological approaches from criminology, natural-resource management, and decision sciences, to (1) understand the processes that lead to environmental risk and (2) devise plans to reduce and prevent risks by effectively targeting antecedent factors. A key aim of conservation criminology is to inform evidence-based conservation policy and practice through the use of robust quantitative and qualitative data analyses. Conservation criminology addresses limitations of the broader field of green criminology, specifically its focus of economic power as the main cause of environmental crime. Conservation criminology has a more defined focus than green criminology. Further, the interdisciplinary framework of conservation criminology supports a holistic understanding of the environmental crimes that considers natural and human risk factors alongside contextual, cultural, and economic influences. From a criminological perspective, conservation criminology draws heavily on crime opportunity theories, crime prevention techniques, and analytic and methodological tools developed in crime science. While crime science perspectives play a large role in the field, conservation criminology does not advocate a particular theoretical perspective. Other criminological perspectives, including enforcement legitimacy, procedural justice, and deterrence, have also been applied to understand environmental crime and inform policy and practice. Influences from natural-resource management include the use of prevention strategies based on the precautionary principle, such as protected areas and community-based conservation, as well as an understanding of the environment as a social-ecological system comprising interactions between human and natural systems. Finally, conservation criminology draws on risk assessment, management, and communication principles from the risk and decision sciences. While the field is still in its infancy, studies in conservation criminology have grown exponentially in the early 21st century. Environmental issues of interest include wildlife poaching, illegal fishing, illicit trade in wildlife products, waste and water management, logging, and industrial noncompliance. Studies in conservation criminology assess the extent of environmental crime problems, explore situational factors that facilitate and impede opportunities for environmental crime, and investigate strategies to prevent and respond to these problems.

Understanding Inconsistent Employee Compliance with Information Security Policies Through the Lens of the Extended Parallel Process Model

A key approach in many organizations to address the myriad of information security threats is encouraging employees to better understand and comply with information security policies (ISPs). Despite a significant body of academic research in this area, a commonly held but questionable assumption in these studies is that noncompliance simply represents the opposite of compliance. Hence, explaining compliance is only half of the story, and there is a pressing need to understand the causes of noncompliance, as well. If organizational leaders understood what leads a normally compliant employee to become noncompliant, future security breaches might be avoided or minimized. In this study, we found that compliant and noncompliant behaviors can be better explained by uncovering actions that focus not only on efficacious coping behaviors, but also those that focus on frustrated users who must sometimes cope with emotions, too. Employees working from a basis of emotion-focused coping are unable to address the threat and, feeling overwhelmed, focus only on controlling their emotions, merely making themselves feel better. Based on our findings, organizations can enhance their security by understanding the “tipping point” where employees’ focus likely changes from problem-solving to emotion appeasement, and instead push them into a more constructive direction.Yan Chen is an associate professor at Florida International University. She received her PhD in management information systems from University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. Her research focuses on information security management, online fraud, privacy, and social media. She has published more than 30 research papers in refereed academic journals and conference proceedings.Dennis F. Galletta is a LEO awardee, fellow, and former president of the Association for Information Systems and professor at University of Pittsburgh since 1985. He has published 108 articles and four books. He is a senior editor at MIS Quarterly and an editorial board member at the Journal of Management Information Systems, and has been on several other boards.Paul Benjamin Lowry is the Suzanne Parker Thornhill Chair Professor in Business Information Technology at the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech. He has published more than 135 journal articles. His research areas include organizational and behavioral security and privacy; online deviance and harassment, and computer ethics; human–computer interaction, social media, and gamification; and decision sciences, innovation, and supply chains.Xin (Robert) Luo is Endowed Regent’s Professor and full professor of MIS at the University of New Mexico. His research has appeared in leading information systems journals, and he serves as an associate editor for the Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Decision Sciences Journal, Information & Management, Electronic Commerce Research, and the Journal of Electronic Commerce Research.Gregory D. Moody is currently Lee Professor of Information Systems at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, and director of the cybersecurity graduate program. His interests include information systems security and privacy, e-business, and human–computer interaction. He is currently a senior editor for the Information Systems Journal and Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction.Robert Willison is a professor of management at Xi’an Jiaotong–Liverpool University. He received his PhD in information systems from the London School of Economics. His research focuses on insider computer abuse, information security policy compliance/noncompliance, software piracy, and cyber-loafing. His research has appeared in refereed academic journals such as MIS Quarterly, Journal of the Association for Information Systems, Information Systems Journal, and others.