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Organization Studies
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Organizations and Risk in Late Modernity

Robert P. Gephart, jr

University of Alberta, Canada, Robert.Gephart{at}ualberta.ca

John Van Maanen

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, jvm{at}mit.edu

Thomas Oberlechner

Webster University, Vienna, Austria, oberlechner{at}webster.ac.at

Risk is an important but under-investigated feature of organizations in Late Modernity. This paper introduces the Special Issue on Organizations and Risk in Late Modernity. The rationale for the special issue is discussed. An overview of important approaches to risk research and organizations is provided to frame the special issue. These approaches include the cognitive science approach, which takes a positivist perspective and assumes that risks are objective and knowable. This view is contrasted with socio-cultural theories based in work by Mary Douglas, Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Michel Foucault. Charles Perrow's organizational theory of the production of risk and accidents due to interactive complexity, and Karl Weick's theory of risk sensemaking, are then discussed. The paper then reviews the contributions of papers in the special issue and outlines issues for future research on risk and organizations.

Key Words: risk • Late Modernity • culture • risk society • governmentality • normal accidents • sensemaking

Organization Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2-3, 141-155 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0170840608101474
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