ABSTRACT
This study looks into the question of how or through what mechanisms social, political, and economic contexts shape social actors’ risk meanings regarding an organizational activity. Organizational risk research shows the contextual effect on the construction of risk meanings (Gamson & Modigliani, 1989; Gephart & Pitter, 1993; Jasanoff, 1988; Nelkin, 1988; Perrow, 1984). Yet, except for social-cultural rationalities emerging and embedded within particular contexts (Beamish, 2001; Gephart, Steier, & Lawrence, 1990; Kamoche & Maguire, 2011; Lane & Quack, 1999), no explicit mechanism, which carries the contextual effect into the actors’ risk construction, is clearly identified by the research. This study explores some other contextual mechanisms, which enable or constrain the development of specific risk meanings. In addition, it shows the relative character of risk construction when the context refers to the existence of other risk sources different from the focal organizational activity.
