  In the current knowledge economy, knowledge represents the most strategically
significant resource of organizations. Knowledge-intensive activities advance
innovation and create and sustain economic rent and competitive advantage. In
order to sustain competitive advantage, organizations must protect knowledge
from leakage to third parties, particularly competitors. However, the number
and scale of leakage incidents reported in news media as well as industry
whitepapers suggests that modern organizations struggle with the protection of
sensitive data and organizational knowledge. The increasing use of mobile
devices and technologies by knowledge workers across the organizational
perimeter has dramatically increased the attack surface of organizations, and
the corresponding level of risk exposure. While much of the literature has
focused on technology risks that lead to information leakage, human risks that
lead to knowledge leakage are relatively understudied. Further, not much is
known about strategies to mitigate the risk of knowledge leakage using mobile
devices, especially considering the human aspect. Specifically, this research
study identified three gaps in the current literature (1) lack of in-depth
studies that provide specific strategies for knowledge-intensive organizations
based on their varied risk levels. Most of the analysed studies provide
high-level strategies that are presented in a generalised manner and fail to
identify specific strategies for different organizations and risk levels. (2)
lack of research into management of knowledge in the context of mobile devices.
And (3) lack of research into the tacit dimension of knowledge as the majority
of the literature focuses on formal and informal strategies to protect explicit
(codified) knowledge.
