Stratum of security practice: Using risk as a measure in the stratification of security works

Corporate security is a unique practice area within the broad security domain, providing security across government and private organisations. Nevertheless, an understanding of the hierarchy and influence of corporate security practitioners within an organisation is lacking. In contrast, security literature claims that senior security practitioners occupy the executive levels of organisational management. Therefore, the study investigated the link between the measure of risk uncertainty and the level of work in a role, using Jaques’ general theory of managerial hierarchies. The study findings demonstrated that within corporate security, risk does provide a measure of work stratification that indicates a relationship between risk scanning and work level. Furthermore, that this identified the hierarchy of security within the broader corporate stratification of work. Results indicate that the higher the person is within the work strata, the broader and more external their scanning of risk. However, the security manager may hold a senior executive title but lacks alignment in risk outlook and level of work when compared to other executive managers