Beyond Bad Apples: Risk Culture in Business

The one bad apple spoiling the whole barrel has become a common metaphor used with reference to risk culture in organisations. This “inside-out” perspective begins with the individual as the unit of analysis and follows with inferences to the broader environment. Since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008, risk culture for many has become the explanation for shortcomings, poor decisions, and moral failures in organisations. This volume presents an institutional perspective of the forces that shape risk culture, and culture more generally, in organisations through a multi-disciplinary examination from a variety of leading academics and subject specialists. The authors demonstrate that firms play a role as manufacturers and managers of risk and they challenge common conceptions that attribute risk to chance circumstances or rogue behaviours. The foundational concepts needed for an institutional view of risk culture are highlighted with subsequent links to significant developments within society and firms.

Michelle Tuveson is Chairman and Executive Director of the Cambridge Centre for Risk Studies, Cambridge Judge Business School. She is a board member, commentator and speaker and her articles have been published in reports such as Risk Analysis: An International Journal, and Financial Times Special Report on Risk Management.

Danny Ralph is the founding Academic Director of the Centre for Risk Studies in Cambridge Judge Business School, and Fellow of Churchill College, at University of Cambridge. Danny works with leading international organisations, in financial services, energy and beyond, on identifying, assessing and managing systemic risks.

Kern Alexander is Professor of Banking and Financial Market Regulation at the University of Zurich. His research focuses on the regulation of financial markets. He is the author of Principles of Banking Regulation (Cambridge University Press, 2019), and co-author of Brexit and Financial Services: Law and Policy (2018), and Economic Sanctions: Law and Public Policy (2009).