Making sense of risk: a sociological perspective on the management of risk

This article describes how risk has been conceptualized in the business and organizationalliterature through four distinct transformations: from the techno-scientific perspective to thecognitive, the social-cultural, and, finally, to the constructionist perspective. Each domainconceptualizes risk in different ways, as organizations have found it difficult to understandand mitigate using the risk management tools available. Conceptualizing risk as sensemakingbecomes relevant due to the complexity of information available to the risk manager, and,coupled with time constraints, this means that risk managers increasingly rely on makingsense of possible threats rather than on the accuracy of the information received. This shiftpresents four contributions to the current literature. First, it suggests that the role of riskmanagement is shifting from being technical in nature to being about risk sensemaking, wherethe manager engages with the social and physical environment with the aim of acquiring cuesthat could indicate how future events will unfold. Second, a sensemaking perspective impliesa shift in the use of risk management systems from being “containers” of knowledge aboutpast risk events to lending legitimacy to the plausibility of the success of future decisions.Third, the role of the risk manager in managing individual risks changes and becomes one ofmanaging everything using the social networks and systems available as indicators of futurerisk events. Finally, the risk manager and the systems he or she relies upon are regardedas a source of risk in themselves as both act as gatekeepers for organizational risk decisionmaking.