Title: Opposing risk management theories: the context of large-scale projects

Authors: Mohammad Baydoun

Addresses: Millennium Development and American University of Beirut, 1316 Riad El Solh Street, Beirut Central District, Beirut, 2011-1104, Lebanon

Abstract: The normal accidents and high reliability organisations theories are widely known as presenting the intellectual discourse between two opposing schools of thought for risk management of complex systems as the first is tagged as pessimistic while the latter is labelled as optimistic. Due to high level of complexity and riskiness that is associated with large-scale project, discussing these two theories in this context is of high relevance. The context of developing countries was selected as investments in these countries are generally risky due to the high level of instability. This research showed that NAT and HRO are complementary rather than contradictory in such context.

Keywords: large-scale projects; normal accidents; high reliability organisations; HRO; developing countries; risky projects; risk management; development projects; complex systems.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBPM.2014.063023

International Journal of Business Performance Management, 2014 Vol.15 No.3, pp.229 - 242

Received: 06 Jun 2013
Accepted: 26 Dec 2013

Published online: 26 Jul 2014 *

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