ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses an initial examination of the construct of risk. This will insist that, contrary to the mainstream view, risk cannot be a unitary construct. It is a system construct. The best method to deconstruct this is to observe how its different components behave much like dialects within a language. Risk dialects can be seen to be on a continuum from ethical considerations to pedantic ones. Many of the demands used by organisations risk reasoning to meet can currently be captured within a fairly narrow range of externally relating dialects around diligence and assurance. Important as these are, we argue that the most effective dialect is actually providence. Predicated on analytical rigour, providential risk is the interface of reasoned decision making to meet the challenges of a set of objectives which convey benefits and offset threats to enhance the defensibility of action and investment. The judge of the fitness of a providential risk system is therefore business success or failure. This creates an uneasy relationship between the idea of calculated risk – which might embrace an ethical optimisation of profit – with merely identified risk.
