Building Resilience in Critical Infrastructure through Public-Private Partnerships: An Exploration of Referent Organizations and Their Influence

As cyberattacks on critical infrastructure continue to grow in frequency and severity, the need for a comprehensive approach to protecting these assets has become increasingly apparent. Public-private partnerships (PPPs) are essential for enabling critical infrastructure cybersecurity, but initiating and formalizing them is fraught with challenges. Our research is a qualitative, multi-case study that investigates the role of referent organizations in initiating and formalizing successful PPPs to support cybersecurity in critical infrastructure sectors. Drawing on Trist's foundational work on inter-organizational relationships, we contextualize the role of referent organizations in PPPs and examine the pre-partnership activities and partnership formation processes of four cybersecurity-focused PPPs. Our analysis identifies and describes the referent activities and outcomes of the four formalized cybersecurity-focused PPPs. We also introduce the concept of visionary referent organizations and elaborate on their role in the development of PPPs. Our study highlights the need for a comprehensive approach to cybersecurity that considers the role of visionary referent organizations in initiating and forming cybersecurity-focused PPPs in critical infrastructure sectors. Our findings provide insights for leaders focused on transforming the resilience of critical infrastructure communities.