ABSTRACT
The RIO project steering group has framed increased complexity, andICT-induced complexity (Hanseth and Ciborra, 2007) in particular, as key areas of interest. According to this pre-assessment (Renn, 2008) of IO as a phenomenon, the current paper will be targeted at exploring the scientific foundations for understanding risk in complex and dynamic environments. It is however not claimed here, that IO should be understood solely on these terms (i.e. complexity); only to say that it deserves particular attention in terms of the inherent way of challenging “common sense” assumptions about how systems behave.At center stage will be a crucial distinction between systems being merely “complicated” vs being “complex” in a more fundamental way. In everyday, as well as in prevalent scientific parlance on risk, this distinction is rarely maintained.
