INTRODUCTION

This chapter focuses on security information management practices used by security service providers in the Gauteng province of South Africa and in Perth, Western Australia. Research on the management of security information was conducted in Gauteng, South Africa and in Perth, Western Australia using the grounded theory design. This strategy was used to accurately determine how security information is managed in private and government organisations in both countries. The researcher held a social constructivist worldview that officials understand the world in which they live and work better than anyone not specifically working in their environment. Therefore, the researcher relied as much as possible on the one-on-one interviews and focus group interviews. Simultaneously, there was a need to understand the responses provided by the participants and to interpret their meaning, so that a theory or pattern of meaning could be generated and inductively developed from the grounded data. Using one-on-one interviews and focus group discussions, the author was directly involved with the participants in the study. Data was collected in the form of written and spoken language using an interview schedule and an interview guide for the focus group interviews. The researcher collected qualitative data from selected security managers, security officials and other stakeholders relating to their own practical experiences on security information management. In so doing, the researcher gained an understanding of the worldview of security practitioners based on their knowledge and experience.

The grounded theory design was used to analyse the data so that a grounded theory could be inductively constructed to contribute to the scientific body of knowledge for this specific discipline. The researcher found the grounded theory design to be a systematic way of developing and integrating this scientific knowledge and information. The open, axial and selective coding procedures were used to generate the grounded theory. This involved generating themes and categories of information, selecting subcategories and positioning it with specific categories and themes within a theoretical model.