Organized Uncertainty: Designing a World of Risk Management

by Michael Power

Since the mid-1990s risk management has undergone a dramatic expansion in its reach and significance, being transformed from an aspect of management control to become a benchmark of good governance for banks, hospitals, schools, charities and many other organizations. Numerous standards for risk management practice have been produced by a variety of transnational organizations. While these many designs and blueprints are accompanied by ideals of enterprise, value production, and good governance, it is argued that the rise of risk management has also coincided with an intensification of auditing and control processes. The legalization and bureacratization of organizational life has increased because risk management has created new demands for proof and evidence of action. In turn, these demands have generated new risks to reputation.

In short, this important book traces the rise of the managerial concept of risk and the different logics and values which underpin it, showing that it has much less to do with real dangers and opportunities than might be thought, and more to do with organizational accountability and legitimacy.

Genres: Business

268 pages, Paperback

First published May 24, 2007

Reviews

[Cold · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fine line runs between understanding uncertainty and vainly trying to control it. Power relentlessly documents how risk management falsely solves the tension between opportunity and discipline.

[E · Rating 4 out of 5]

An academic argument for transforming risk management to risk governance

Michael Power takes an academic look at how risk analysis has become risk management since the 1990s and how the present demand for greater business accountability is turning risk management into risk governance. The ideas in the book are solid, and not as opaque as Power’s academic argot (“managerialization,” “scientificity,” “scientization”) may make them seem. Constant explanations of detailed studies and risk models become somewhat complex for the general reader, but getAbstract recommends this informed and informative analysis to risk management professionals and professors who will appreciate Power’s depth of knowledge.

[Sean de la Rosa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure what value these types of books add. It’s almost a philosophical look at the origins and value of ERM in society today. The text is unnecessarily verbose. A couple of good take aways though included:
- Risk management is a de-regulatory strategy aimed at making the organisation self-aware.
- “…it is really fear of blame, rather than enterprise, which motivates the rational designs for risk management which has developed since 1995.
- “ERM has become a conceptual umbrella, a view from above, for a mix of managerial risk objects which had been functionally separate: legal compliance, strategic clarity, market volatility, information security, and many others can now be imagined together.”