Risk Management at the Shopfloor: The Perception of Formal Rules in High‐Risk Work Situations

In: Journal of contingencies and crisis management, Band 6, Heft 4, S. 177-188

Abstract

Bureaucratic control by formal rules and procedures has its limitations as a tool of risk management. Therefore, the central thought developed in this paper is that the content of a company's risk management, as a set of formal procedures, should be congruent with the tacit knowledge and informal rules present in that company. Next to the type of rules, the ways in which rules are handled – the regulation regime – is of importance. In this paper, data collected is presented that enables a comparative analysis of those who work in high‐risk situations and those who do not. From a multivariate regression‐analysis it is concluded that high‐risk workers' satisfaction with formal rules is strongly dependent on the ways in which these rules are handled. Such a regulation regime is characterized by workers' participation in the formulation of formal rules; by consultation with workers by managers as to the former's experiences with the rules involved; and by the degree of direct control. The analysis shows that top‐down risk management, itself, creates risks by its hierarchical character. It also shows that an approach which takes into account the perceptions of workers is more promising.