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A tough decision made easy?: local government decision-making about contracting for cybersecurity

More and more local governments across the U.S. contract out for cybersecurity, yet the public administration literature suggests that the government's contracting decision might be problematic. There appears to be a disconnect between what the literature suggests behavior should look like and the actual outcome that results in cybersecurity contracting arrangements? This paper develops a conceptual model, illustrating a set of criteria and constraints that have influence on the local government's decision-making about contracting for cybersecurity. In exploring various legal, economic, and administrative issues that may have influence on contracting decisions for cybersecurity; and comparing those to traditional IT decision making, we found that the problems in traditional IT contracting are more pronounced in cybersecurity. This appears to be largely due to the unique nature of cybersecurity products and services, and the more pronounced challenges of the cyber workforce issues when compared with traditional IT workforce challenges.