Lawless, Christopher --- "The Fallout from the Fallout: Hazards, Risks and Organizational Learning" [2011] ELECD 923; in Alemanno, Alberto (ed), "Governing Disasters" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Governing Disasters

Editor(s): Alemanno, Alberto

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857935724

Section: Chapter 15

Section Title: The Fallout from the Fallout: Hazards, Risks and Organizational Learning

Author(s): Lawless, Christopher

Number of pages: 13

Extract:

15. The fallout from the fallout:
hazards, risk and organizational
learning
Christopher Lawless

15.1 INTRODUCTION: UNDERSTANDING RISK IN
A COMPLEX WORLD
In a world of choices, risk is an inevitable and unavoidable aspect of
everyday life. Yet while we as individuals may experience the outcomes of
risk, the manner in which risks arise, and the practices and procedures
through which risk is comprehended and understood, display a distinctly
socialized character. Sociologists have for some time emphasized the instru-
mental organizing role risk plays in modern societies. The work of Beck
(1992) has proved particularly influential in demonstrating how awareness
of the increasingly hazardous, but also unpredictable, nature of technologi-
cal advancement is serving to define the social condition, at least in the
western world. Beck's conception of the `Risk Society' has since been
joined by numerous other sociological analyses that have explored the way
risk is addressed in various settings.
The relationship between risk and organizations has been found to be
significantly complex. Risk may not be `clearly identifiable and manage-
able, but emerges and is constructed from complex but fractured processes
of organizational attention involving information systems, incentive struc-
tures and narratives of explanation which are the source of further uncer-
tainties' (Scheytt et al., 2006, p.1333). Related studies have described how
`risks' are rendered as `decidable' by societies (ibid.); `how one views risk
determines how one assesses it' (Corvellec, 2010, p.145, emphasis added).
Hutter and Power (2005) argue that risk is an inherently organized
...