In recent years, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the accommodation and food service sectors have rapidly digitalised their processes. This development has been driven by a desire to improve operational efficiency and adopt practices that have already become commonplace in other industries. However, the development of cybersecurity capabilities - the other side of digitalisation - has not progressed at the same pace, and data privacy expertise, for example, remains limited in some organisations. More recently, the widespread adoption of generative artificial intelligence has also introduced new types of cybersecurity risks.
The SHIELD project consists of three sub-studies
- Document analysis examining publicly available privacy statements of Finnish SMEs in the accommodation and food service sectors (n=100),
- Survey targeting supervisors/managers (n≈100) and employees (n≈200) in SMEs within the sector to assess the current state of cybersecurity competence,
- LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP) workshops (participants n≈25), aimed at collaboratively developing and implementing guidelines and best practices.
Project results
The SHIELD project will provide a comprehensive overview of current practices within the sector in Finland, including staff training, the existence and quality of internal operating procedures and guidelines, and the overall role of cybersecurity within organisational culture.
The project will thus produce an evidence-based understanding of how cybersecurity is currently understood, prioritised, and implemented in practice within the accommodation and food service sectors, as well as how the current situation could most effectively be improved.
