The Management Object in Risk Management Approaches: How Risk Management Frames the Possible Actions for Managing Risks

Abstract

Using a systematic review of the last 55 years of research within risk management this paper explores how risk management as a management technology (methodologies, tools and frameworks to mitigate or manage risks) singles out risks as an object for management in order to make action possible. The paper synthesise by developing a framework of how different views on risk management enable and constrain the knowledge about risk and thus frame the possibilities to measure, analyse and calculate uncertainty and risk. Inspired by social studies of finance and accounting, the paper finally develops three propositions that illustrate how the framing of risk establishes a boundary for how managers might understand value creation and the possible future and how this impacts the possible responses to risk.