Risk Assessment In Risk Management

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Risk Assessment Risk assessment is an important aspect that should be considered for risk management practices in all organization (Lofstedt, 2003; Hampton, 2005; NRC, 2009; Power, 2004). Suter (1992) defines risk assessment as the process of assigning probabilities to the adverse effects of human activities. This is commonly seen as the centre of physical and biological sciences, with experts focusing on risk management and communication (Freudenburg, 1988). Particularly, risk assessment involves framing and forecasting the probability of consequences of identified threats (Eiser et al., 2012). This involves taking into account the likelihood of the risk and its economic, environmental, and social implications (Eiser et al., 2012). Therefore,…show more content…
Another argument for assessment is the requirement of appropriate in-depth analysis to gain sufficient and reliable information (Power, 2004; Aven, 2012). When conducting risk assessment and analysis the availability of reliable and comprehensive data must exist (Hood et al., 2002; Power, 2004; Paustenbach, 2002). Hence, such assessment should aim to identify and gather information from the range of sources that are significant to the individual being assessed (Kemshall and Wood, 2007) in relation to the risk-based society we currently live in (Beck, 1992). However, Bernstein (1998) argues that one can never be certain of anything, since the mass of available information is either inaccurate or incomplete. Therefore, when sensible, efforts should be made to involve stakeholders in the assessment process and allow contributions to interested parties (Fischhoff, 1995; Klinke and Renn, 2002; Renn, 1998). Such contributions can improve the transparency of the risk assessment, increase the quality of risk assessment through additional expertise and information, and facilitate risk communication by increasing the credibility and acceptance of the results from the assessment (Siegrist and Cvetkovich, 2000; Huber and Rothstein, 2013; Renn, 1998; Power,…show more content…
However, risk analysts depend on selective information and assumptions based on their background knowledge (Aven, 2011a;2012). This may be because collecting data is a burden, expensive to access, and may require scientific experts to assess (Rothstein, 2006; Freudenburg, 1988; Fairley, 1977). Yet, they still conduct assessments to identify the level of risk acceptability (Aven, 2011b; Bouder et al., 2007; Fischhoff and Lichtenstein, 1984; Huber and Rothstein, 2013). Conversely, modern risk-based organizations do not only identify risks, but also defines acceptable and unacceptable levels of risk (Huber and Rothstein, 2013). This allows the organization to verify if an activity is risky, thus it is rational to make our decisions based on science (Michaels, 2008; Lofstedt, 2003;

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