Title: Risk management: demythologising its belief foundations

Authors: Robert Elliott Allinson

Addresses: Gandhi Hall, 1 University Drive, Soka University of America, Aliso Viejo, CA 92656, USA

Abstract: Fallacious anthropomorphic attributions such as |risky technology| take ethical accountability out of the hands of managers and relegate it to the deterministic or accidental outcomes of complex |high risk technology|. Equally fallacious mechanistic terms such as |organisational inertia| are borrowed from physics to apply to human organisations. The responsibility for ethically accountable decision-making is taken out of human hands and either ascribed to the mythological entity ||Technology|| or to the mythological bureaucratic organsation which functions as if it follows the laws of physics. I argue in contrast that disasters can be prevented by demythologising the belief systems that pervade risk management literature. Risk management must reclaim ethical accountability by replacing notions such as |risky technology|, |high risk technology|, |risky work| and |bureaucratic drift| with |risky assessment|, |risky management|, |risky choice| and |multiple responsibility|.

Keywords: accidents; chance; determinism; ethical accountability; high risk technology; multi-causality; risk assessment; risk management; risky technology; Challenger disaster; tragedy; risky assessment; risky management; risky choice; multiple responsibility.

DOI: 10.1504/IJRAM.2007.011984

International Journal of Risk Assessment and Management, 2007 Vol.7 No.3, pp.299 - 311

Published online: 07 Jan 2007 *

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