Does risk matter? Disengagement from risk management practices in information systems projects

Elmar Kutsch, David Denyer, Mark Hall and Elizabeth (Liz) Lee-Kelley

European Journal of Information Systems, 2013, vol. 22, issue 6, 637-649

Abstract: Risk management and ‘routine-based reliability’ is considered fundamental to project performance. Existing theories of project risk management do not fully explain why project managers stop practicing risk management information systems (IS); however, constructs drawn from organisation theory offer insights into how and why such disengagement occurs. The study examines risk management practices in 21 IS projects within 10 organisations. By focusing on risks that resulted in significant events and mapping backwards over time the practices associated with those risks, we identify that in all but five projects the manager had disengaged from prescribed risk management before executing risk responses. In most projects, the majority of formally identified and assessed risks remained unallocated and untreated. A laddering technique was used to help explain why this transpired. We found five key underlying beliefs that governed project managers’ risk management attitudes and actions.

Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1057/ejis.2012.6 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tjisxx:v:22:y:2013:i:6:p:637-649

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tjis20

DOI: 10.1057/ejis.2012.6

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Information Systems is currently edited by Par Agerfalk

More articles in European Journal of Information Systems from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().