Risk attitude and risk culture in a South African logistics organisation

Abstract

During the initial research in preparation of the research proposal for the primary study on risk culture, it emerged that the risk culture of an organisation is more than the collective risk attitudes of the individual decision-makers in an organisation. This statement prompted a second explorative study on risk attitude that could verify possible associations with risk culture elements. No previous studies could be found that confirms this association. This paper therefore consists of essentially two complementary studies. The academic article explored risk culture as an indicator of risk maturity in an organisation, identified other measures that could explain increasing maturity and proved that sub-cultures exist between the different management levels in the case study company. The results of the second study, captured in a research note, pointed to some association in the middle management ranks between risk culture and risk attitude, but the results were inconclusive.