Decision Making under Risk

The present study tries to analyse organisational processes of decision making under conditions of risk. The challenge for a sociological analysis of decision making under risk is, however, that the long tradition of theorising about problems of risk in decision making has taken place under the auspices of economic concepts of decision, risk, and uncertainty. Only in recent years, social theorists have put emphasis on developing genuinely sociological concepts of decision making, and of risk. These theoretical developments suggest that the classic conceptions of risk, rooted in economic theory, were not appropriate to guide empirical analyses of the social conflicts concerning risk (cf. e.g. Douglas 1985; Perrow 1984; Wynne 1987; Short 1984; 1989). Thus, for sociological analyses, it is necessary to develop concepts that deviate in almost all relevant aspects from the economic tradition.