Risk Management: A Review Of Recent Philosophical Perspectives

Abstract

Risk management is not a new organisational discipline, however most of previous literatures in the field were almost monopolize by a single approach, those of positivism. Such a tendency towards a single approach can prove problematic as it can hinder the alternative conception of problems in the field of risk management. Moreover, this approach see risk management as a technical value free discipline which identical to the practice of natural science instead of its true nature as a social science that can be prove by observing the inrrelationship of the field with other elements in organisation, particularly the behaviour of organisation’s actors. This paper aims to review existing risk management research approach and its underlying assumptions that might be has evolve towards multiple approaches. The review found the conventional approach is still dominant in the field, however there are significantly increase in the recent literatures on the post-positivistic approach such interpretative and radical approach in studying risk management in organisation. The alternative approach is used to study the interpretation and risk management meaning through the practices in the organisation, the impact of the practice and its mutual interrelationship with the other organisational elements. In a review and analysis of this topic, this paper notes the importance of Burrell and Morgan’s rather surprising paradigm in the conceptual discussion of the discipline philosophy.