Exploring internal strategic risk communication in a South African national government department

Abstract

The concept of risk communication is an integral part of risk analysis and a necessary tool to facilitate consistency and appropriately define issues to improve the risk management process. Although literature on risk communication has been published, no research was found to be reported on internal strategic risk communication focusing on the perceptions of employees, specifically in a national government department in South Africa. The study reported here explored employees’ lived experiences of risk communication in terms of barriers to and facilitators of internal strategic risk communication. In addition, feedback on how the process could be improved was gathered. A qualitative explorative study was conducted on the basis of semi-structured interviews. Using the convenience sampling method, 12 out of a population of 125 senior and middle managers were selected to address the research questions. Participants were asked what barriers to and facilitators of strategic risk communication prevail in the department and what they considered could be done differently. These interviews were recorded and transcribed. An inductive thematic coding process was applied to analyse the data by extracting codes and themes from the interviews. The results represented five key themes related to barriers and two about facilitators of strategic risk communication in the department. The barriers identified included a lack of collaboration with stakeholder, message not reaching the intended recipient, risk framing, poor tone at the top, and risk champions not working effectively. The facilitators included oversight structures and the work of risk practitioners. Participants also provided recommendations to improve the strategic risk communication process such as development of a communication strategy to direct communication more effectively. The research scope was limited to strategic risk communication, which excludes other forms of risks, including operational risks. Further research should be conducted to source the views of employees in the organisation at other levels and also to involve other departments that assist the department to implement mitigation plans.