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.
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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.
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Meet 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
Glossary xvii
1 Organized Uncertainty: An Introduction 1
2 Turning Organizations Inside Out: The Rise of Internal Control 34
3 Standardizing Risk Management: Making up Processes and People 66
4 Putting Categories to Work: The Invention of Operational Risk 103
5 Governing Reputations: The Outside Comes in 128
6 Making Risk Auditable: Legalization and Organization 152
7 Designing a World of Risk Management 183
References 204
Index 233