Cyber Security vs. Digital Innovation: A Trade-off for Logistics Companies?

Abstract

Digital innovations are essential for companies in the 21st century. However, due to their reliance on (new) technologies, they are associated with cybersecurity risks. As the reduction of these can negatively affect an organization’s innovation capability, a trade-off might result. This trade-off has, to our knowledge, not yet been sufficiently researched. Our paper contributes to closing this research gap using semi-structured interviews with 14 digital innovation and cybersecurity experts in the German logistics industry. Findings from these interviews suggest that there are different types of tensions between digital innovation and cybersecurity capabilities detrimentally influencing innovations in three ways: by slowing down (temporally), requiring more resources (economically), or restricting innovative freedom (functionally). Furthermore, we were able to identify triggering and resolving factors. Thereby, our paper offers valuable contributions from both a theoretical as well as practical perspective.