Organized Uncertainty: Designing a World of Risk Management

by Michael Power

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199548804
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/15/2009
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	268
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 2.10(d)

About the Author

Michael Power is Professor of Accounting and Research Theme Director of the ESRC Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and an Associate member of the UK Chartered Institute of Taxation. He is a former Visiting Fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin and at All Souls College, Oxford His publications include The Audit Society (Oxford, 1997) and The Risk Management of Everything (Demos, 2004). He is also co-editor of Organizational Encounters with Risk (Cambridge, 2005).

Table of Contents

1. Organized Uncertainty: An Introduction2. Turning Organizations Inside Out: The Rise of Internal Control3. Standardizing Risk Management: Making Up Processes and People4. Putting Categories to Work: The Invention of Operational Risk5. Governing Reputation: The Outside Comes In6. Making Risk Auditable: Legalization and Organization7. Designing a World of Risk Management