Perceptions of operational risk culture in a South African public service organisation

Abstract

Globally, risk management is becoming the basis for challenging the quality of public sector services (Power, 2004). In South Africa, however, the focus of risk management has largely been on the private sector and rarely within the sphere of government. This study focused on how the perceptions of risk culture compared within a single South African public service organisation. In an online survey, using the Centre of Applied Risk Management (UARM) Risk Culture Scale (RCS), risk culture data were collected from management and non-management employees (n=201 valid responses). Both groups indicated a medium to high perception of risk culture. About 90% of all respondents reported having been employed in the organisation for 10 years and longer, which was believed to be the reason for the homogenous nature of the responses. However, more detailed analysis of the management group's responses indicated a significant finding that branch managers specifically (as distinct from operations managers) were more comfortable with their own risk management role. This result may be due to branch manager's active role in the organisation and branch level experience of risk related decision-making. Surprisingly, as much as 20.5% of all the respondents answered "I do not know" when asked if the organisation's risk training initiatives had prepared them to manage the risks connected to their roles. These results suggest that further action should include risk training to support risk management more strongly. In addition, the respondents suggested that leadership's tone from the top as well as shared understanding of risk should be encouraged to improve risk culture in the organisation. Careful attention should be paid by public sector management to ensure that all operational processes support the management of operational risk to help detect and manage operational risks on time, avoiding government service delivery failure.