The social amplification of risk on Twitter: the case of ash dieback disease in the United Kingdom

It has long been recognised that the traditional media play a key role in representing risk and are a significant source of information which can shape how people perceive and respond to hazard events. Early work utilising the social amplification of risk framework (SARF) sought to understand the discrepancy between expert and lay perceptions of risk and patterns of risk intensification and attenuation with reference to the media. However, the advent of Web 2.0 challenges traditional models of communication. To date there has been limited consideration of social media within the SARF and its role in mediating processes of risk perception and communication. Against this backdrop, we focus on the social media platform Twitter to consider the social amplification of risk in relation to ash dieback disease (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus); a tree health issue that attracted intense media attention when it was first identified in the UK in 2012. We present an empirical analysis of 25,600 tweets in order to explore what people were saying about ash dieback on Twitter, who was talking about it and how they talked about it. Our discussion outlines the themes around which talk about ash dieback was orientated, the significance of users’ environmental ‘affiliations’ and the role of including links (URLs) to traditional media coverage. We utilise the notion of ‘piggybacking’ to demonstrate how information is customised in line with group/individual identities and interests and introduce the concept of the ‘frame fragment’ to illustrate how information is selected and moved around Twitter emphasising certain features of the messages. The paper affords a detailed consideration of the way in which people and organisations simultaneously appropriate, construct and pass on risk-relevant information. A conclusion is that social media has the potential to transform the media landscape within which the SARF was originally conceived, presenting renewed challenges for risk communication.     

Redefining the issues of risk and public acceptance: The social viability of technology

A conceptual framework is proposed within which the notion of risk as normally used in risk assessment (RA) could be enlarged in line with the real substance of social issues of technology policy, to help avoid RA's threatened irrelevance to social decisionmaking. It is argued that the frequent organizational incoherence and thus the unviability of modern technology arises from ‘social alienation’ between the innovation-commitment phase and the implementation of the technology in society. The roles of technical elites and of particular concepts of technology in this alienation are emphasized.     

The risk organisation: or how organisations reconcile themselves to failure

Over the last decade, the ideas, concepts and tools of risk management have colonised the way that organisations frame potential adverse outcomes associated with their activities. Intended as a means of optimising the tolerance, rather than elimination, of adverse organisational outcomes, risk management has been promoted as a means of challenging organisational practice, particularly in the context of heightened accountability pressures that can readily make organisations risk averse. Relatively little attention, however, has been paid to the extent to which risk ideas are able to challenge traditional organisational ways of understanding and responding to adverse outcomes. In this article, therefore, we examine the implementation of risk management practices in two contrasting organisational contexts; the UK Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the English university sector. Our studies suggest that risk management processes can be readily filtered and reinterpreted through a series of ideological, methodological and organisational mechanisms to reflect and reinforce organisational understandings and practices. We build on this analysis to point to what might tentatively be termed ‘Risk Organizations’, which are distinctive, at least in principle, by the way in which they seek to identify, but also come to terms with, failure. As such, rather than providing a means of organisational challenge, the systematic application of risk management practices tends to act as a conservative force of organisational continuity.     

From objective to constituted risk: an alternative approach to safety in strategic technological innovation in the European Union

Safety is a legitimate means of limiting technological innovation in our societies. However, the potential socio-economic impact of curtailing techno-industrial progress on the grounds of safety means that risk governance policies tend to restrict the range of legitimate approaches to safety on the principle that it can only be discussed in the frame of an allegedly objective scientific representation of risk. In European risk governance, socio-economic factors such as the underlying innovation rationales and goals are not openly considered to be related to the constitution of safety, but tend largely to be treated as factors of subjective reaction towards risk and technology. This paper seeks to overcome that approach by proposing a ‘constitutive’ understanding of how risk and socio-economic factors and dynamics relate, focusing in particular on the ‘safe and responsible’ development of nanotechnology in the European Union (EU). I argue that risk is constituted according to socio-economic considerations, and that the controllability of the environmental and health risks of nanotechnology in the EU is assumed on principle in the very strong institutional commitment to the industrial exploitation of nanotechnology R&D. Using a constitutive approach, we may legitimately conceive a broader set of potential safety scenarios, while at the same time highlighting major obstacles to implementing more critical constitutions of techno-industrial risk in the framework of a highly competitive knowledge-based global economy.     

The new political importance of the old hurricane risk: a contextual approach to understanding contemporary struggles with hurricane risk and insurance

In the United States, policy-makers struggle to resolve conflict between public demands for affordable insurance costs covering hurricanes and market demands for risk-based insurance pricing. Given the socially constructed nature of risk, a risk-based pricing approach prioritizes insurer values and business practices over all societal value goals expressly limiting democratic inclusion in decision-making about risk. As a step towards the more democratically inclusive approach of risk governance, this article uses the state of Florida as a case study to provide a narrative of the social and political context for the evolution of the idea of U.S. hurricane risk. I argue that today’s hurricane risk is a product of long-standing shared efforts to build prosperity. However, it is no longer a simple risk for society to overcome on its way to economic well-being. Contemporary hurricane risk is systemic and serves as a nexus for political battles over American values.     

The two faces of social capital in private flood mitigation: opposing effects on risk perception,self-efficacy and coping capacity

Impacts of flooding are expected to increase, most notably in residential areas. As a consequence, private households are increasingly encouraged to engage in private flood mitigation complementary to public measures. Despite the growing literature on private flood mitigation, little is known about how social capital influences households’ perception of and coping with flood risks. This study draws on survey data of 226 flood-prone households in two Austrian Alpine municipalities, both recently affected by riverine flooding. We show that social capital cuts both ways: on the positive side, social capital increases perceived self-efficacy and provides critical support during and most notably after flood events. On the negative side, social capital reduces flood risk perceptions of private households. While social ties are effective when responding to and recovering from floods, the expectation of social support downplays risk, making precautionary action by households less likely. The results also show that flood-affected households receive more social support than they provide to others. In the long-run, this can lead to a problematic reciprocity imbalance, challenging the long-term stability of the interpersonal exchanges underlying social capital. Among the various sources of social support, informal social networks (neighbours, friends and relatives) provide the most important workforce in the response and recovery phase of a flood event. It is therefore crucial for flood risk management to recognise and promote the protective quality of social capital alongside conventional structural and non-structural measures.     

The prophecy of Ulrich Beck: signposts for the social sciences

Abstract

This special issue on the legacy of Ulrich Beck is aimed to stimulate reflection both on the specific uses to which Beck’s conceptual and theoretical apparatus can be put within risk studies and the wider significance of his academic project for the social sciences. In this end-piece, we draw out the key themes which surface in the different contributions relating to five particular areas: the nature of risk; advancements in methods; issues of non-knowledge and uncertainty; the development of cosmopolitan risk communities; and the situated character of individualization. We discuss the implications of the accounts contained in this special issue and reflect on the impact and influence of Beck’s sustained engagement with colleagues around the globe, concluding that the concepts and methods that Beck bequeathed the social sciences are set to live on and thrive.     

Institutionalization of risk and safety management at the local governmental level in Sweden

The starting point for this article is the need for empirical knowledge about organizational configuration for societal risk and safety management activities in a modern welfare society. In this paper, we use Sweden as an empirical frame to analyze the administrative management structure at the local governmental level. The analysis is based on statistical analysis of information from a web‐survey with administrative chief/head officials (n = 1283) with responsibilities for different municipal functions and sectors. The sample represented 25% of the Swedish municipalities (n = 290) and the response rate was approximately 60% (n = 766). The responses to two sets of questions (25 and 45 questions) are used for statistical analyses of management structures and task distribution within the municipal organizations. Principal component factor analyses with Varimax and Kaiser's Normalization was applied as a structure detection method. The results indicate a clear and uniform way to institutionalize societal risk and safety management at the local level. Furthermore, the management course of action is found to have different types of value characters. The implications that arise from the patterns identified in this study are considered to be of general relevance and topicality for research and practice in this area.     

Expert relevance and the use of context-driven heuristic processes in risk perception

The effectiveness of a medical treatment should not predict its risk (highly effective treatments can be either safe or risky), however, people’s use of heuristic shortcuts may lead them to judge a link between effectiveness and risk, typically a negative correlation. A particular concern is that experts might use such a strategy and that this is unlikely to provide an accurate judgement. This large-scale field-based experiment compares expert-relevant and non-expert-relevant contexts, for both expert and public judgements of risk and effectiveness in the context of blood transfusion medicine. Postal questionnaires were distributed to anaesthetists (experts, N?=?123) and a general public (non-expert) comparison group (N?=?1153); half of the participants were cued with accompanying general information about genetically-modified (GM) biotechnology and half received specific information about blood product technologies. The blood-focussed information served to emphasise the medical relevance of the questionnaire to the expert group. Regression analyses showed that generally perceived effectiveness predicted perceived risk for both experts and non-experts, which suggests heuristic processing. However, although experts appeared to engage in heuristic processing for risk perceptions in certain circumstances, this processing is strongly affected by context. Experts who received the medically relevant context rated perceptions of effectiveness independently of perceptions of risk, unlike those who received the GM context. This indicates a reduced reliance on a low-effort heuristic for experts given an expertise-relevant context. The results are considered in light of dual-process (rational-associative) accounts of reasoning.     

Accounting students access to social media related resources and the risk of tacit social exclusion

ABSTRACT

The use of social media platforms to facilitate teaching and learning requires resources (hardware and Internet access) to enable active student participation. Limited access to these resources may impair students’ learning and, should the students consequently fail to graduate, tacitly contribute to their social exclusion. The results of a survey amongst students at a South African university, identified statistically significant differences relating to hardware and Internet access between more affluent students, and lower income students. Using social media may, therefore, be countering the objective of widening the admissions to universities in South Africa as an attempt to address past exclusionary practices. This study raises awareness with instructors and administrators globally, about the risk of tacit social exclusion, as a result of the tools selected to facilitate learning.     

Enterprise risk management and firm performance: Role of the risk committee

In recent years, there have been increasing efforts in the corporate world to invest in risk management and governance processes. In this paper, we examine the impact of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) on firm performance by examining whether firm performance is strengthened or weakened by the establishment of a board-level risk committee (BLRC), an important governance mechanism that oversees ERM processes. Based on 260 observations from FTSE350 listed firms in the UK during 2012–2015, we find the effectiveness of ERM significantly and positively affects firm performance. We also find strong BLRC governance complements this relationship and increases the firm performance effects of ERM. Our findings suggest the mere formation of a BLRC is not a panacea for ERM oversight; however, existence of a structurally strong BLRC is crucial for effective ERM governance.     

Standards for risk assessment of standards: how the international community is starting to address the risk of the wrong standards

Technical standards pervade commerce and society and allow the complexity of modern life to operate at all levels, global included. They also provide protection against many risks, whether from food, from dangerous products or from fraud. They are so self-evidently worthy that they are rarely challenged, yet anything as powerful and pervasive as the web of standards needs some element of oversight and quality assurance. There is a danger of over-regulating and the placing of unnecessary constraints on the market and, cumulatively, a constraint on liberties. Technical standards are derived from many sources and for many reasons. The oversight function may need to relate to these reasons, such as the World Trade Organisation controls on damage to trade through protectionist standards. A very common reason for standards is safety, which tends to be treated as an absolute, as an objective technical matter, and there is less oversight or quality assurance of standards set for safety reasons. But safety is a relative term and increases in safety will usually have costs. Judgement needs to be applied in a risk assessment but that raises institutional issues as to who is qualified to apply that judgement. There are also issues of the accountability of those who increase the safety ratchet, which are also related to the institutional issue. This paper explores a case study of one draft standard as an illustration of the need for oversight and then goes on to consider methods of managing the risks inherent in standardisation and technical regulation. It looks in particular at two recent initiatives from within the standards community itself. One is a broad-based proposal for the community to focus on risk management and the other is an instance where a technical regulator has commissioned and designed an impact assessment system in order to provide that quality assurance and accountability.     

Sociological approaches to risk: strong in analysis but weak in policy influence in recent UK developments

Sociological approaches to risk and uncertainty are well‐developed. These approaches have played an important role in analysing the significance of risk and uncertainty in modern social life. However, it is approaches based on rational actor perspectives in New Public Management that have become pre‐eminent in handling social risks in recent UK policies. This paper tackles the puzzle of why sociology is strong in critique but much weaker in policy influence by pointing to the institutional and contextual standing of approaches which offer a natural home to individual rational actor approaches within UK government.

Approaches that understand and analyse risk in statistical terms have been particularly influential in many aspects of modern life. A second stream, that has tended to attract less attention, stresses linkages between these approaches and the growth of particular institutions. The challenges faced by modern states in a post‐industrial and globalised world are widely discussed. An important response, particularly prominent in the UK and especially in social policy‐making, has been New Public Management, associated with an individual rational actor paradigm. Sociological approaches to risk have contributed a number of critiques of this development, however these critiques have failed to gain much purchase on policy‐making. One reason is the extent to which approaches which rest on an individual rational actor paradigm are entrenched within the institutional framework of policy‐making. This paradigm rests on a different approach to agency than that which is most influential in sociology.     

Using qualitative types of risk assessments in conjunction with FRAM to strengthen the resilience of systems

Abstract

In this paper, we look into how some qualitative types of risk assessments can be used in conjunction with functional resonance analysis method (FRAM) to strengthen the resilience of systems. In FRAM, variation in relation to meeting specified functions is central, but risk and uncertainty considerations are not an integral part. We suggest to add to FRAM an assessment of the modelling choices and judgements using strength of knowledge considerations and a qualitative sensitivity analysis. In this way, an improved basis for assessing and strengthening system resilience with FRAM is established. We illustrate the idea with a simple example from the oil and gas industry.     

Social risk screening using a socio-political ambiguity approach: the case of organic agriculture in Iran

While ecological sustainability of organic agriculture (OA) has been frequently investigated, there are limited studies on its social sustainability, especially in developing countries. Given significant benefits of OA, screening the potential social risks associated with OA seems necessary. This paper introduces a socio-political ambiguity approach based on a hybrid model of ‘risk and social impact assessment’ for screening the risks of OA. As a case study, the paper focuses on the OA development in Iran using qualitative research to elicit opinions and judgments of farmers, consumers, and policy-makers. The results of the study revealed that there are serious ambiguities and risks associated with OA. This paper demonstrates that risks (especially social risks) of OA have received too little attention and were considered as can be neglected.     

Corporate social responsibility and corruption risk: A global perspective

This paper extends our knowledge on corporate corruption risk by examining whether and to what extent corporate social responsibility (CSR) affects firm-level corruption risk. Using a cross-country sample of major multinational firms, we find that firm-level CSR mitigates corruption risk. On closer examination, we find that the relationship between CSR and corruption risk is mediated by country-level variables such as institutional quality, protection of minority shareholders’ rights, stock market development and freedom of the press. Further, we find that in emerging countries, CSR mitigates corruption risk only when the country-level institutional quality is high and citizens enjoy press freedom. Our findings suggest that both formal institutions and the quality of civil society influence the effect of CSR on corruption risk. Our results remain robust to controls for endogeneity and potential sample selection bias.     

An examination of order effects in auditors' inherent risk assessments

While recency effects have been reported in a variety of audit tasks, recent studies suggest that these effects may be mitigated under certain conditions. The importance of investigating order effects in auditors' judgments rests with its potential to impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of audits. Since current studies suggest that recency effects may not impact on all audit situations, it is necessary to identify conditions or variables in the task environment that either induce or mitigate recency.
This study examines the occurrence of order effects in auditors' inherent risk assessments, a task not previously examined. Using a case study administered to 70 auditors, this study found that auditors' judgments were not influenced by the order in which audit evidence was evaluated. Rather, the results suggest that judgments of inherent risk may be biased towards conservatism. This may not be surprising given the negative consequences associated with failing to adequately plan an audit. This may cause auditors to act cautiously and thus mitigate recency effects.     

Corporate social responsibility and the assessment by auditors of the risk of material misstatement

This paper investigates whether, and how, firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance influences the auditor's assessment of the risk of material misstatement, whether due to fraud or error, at the financial statement level by analysing their pricing decision (i.e., audit fees). Using a panel data set of 12,330 firms from 28 countries over the period 2003–2012 and different measures of CSR performance, we find a U‐shaped relationship between firms’ CSR performance and audit fees. This result suggests that there is an optimal level of CSR performance that minimizes the auditor's assessment of the risk of material misstatement, which in turn lowers the need for greater auditor effort; that is why auditors charge firms significantly less when their CSR performance is at the optimal level. Finally, we also show that the optimal level of CSR performance varies with the degree of environmental dynamism, ownership concentration and leverage.     

The rise of defensive engineering: how personal liability considerations impact decision-making

Abstract

Based on a survey of Australian engineers (n = 275) this paper examines the impact of personal liability considerations on engineering decision-making. Almost all respondents who make high-stakes decisions saw questions of liability as having both positive (90%) and negative (87%) impacts. Our analysis shows that awareness of personal liability acts to focus the attention of many engineers on the moral dimension of their work. However, it also encourages more expensive decision-making, inhibition of innovation and professional paralysis. We argue that while personal legal liability is a legitimate way to focus engineers’ attention on the potential impact of their work, a problem arises when decision-makers are held responsible for disasters over which they had little control. The focus then shifts to ‘defensive engineering’ practices that are aimed at limiting individual liability rather than disaster prevention. Legal processes that are seen to unfairly allocate blame do not encourage practices that support future disaster prevention.     

Corporate social responsibility and firm financial risk reduction: On the moderating role of the legal environment

Approaching the institutional environment through its regulative component, we distinguish between shareholder‐oriented and stakeholder‐oriented countries. Identifying first this classification with the distinction between common law versus civil law countries and using a large sample of 5,716 firm‐year observations that represents 1,169 individual firms in 25 countries between 2001 and 2011, we show that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) significantly reduces firms’ idiosyncratic risk in civil law countries but not in common law countries. Using then a more direct classification based on shareholder and employee protection scores, our findings suggest that CSR negatively affects firms’ idiosyncratic and systematic risks only in less shareholder‐oriented and more stakeholder‐oriented countries, respectively. These findings are similar in the different components of CSR with two notable exceptions: a high score in corporate governance reduces firm risk only in common law countries, and community involvement increases idiosyncratic risk in more shareholder‐oriented and less stakeholder‐oriented countries, respectively. Taken together, our results strongly support the view that the relationship between CSR and financial risk is moderated by the institutional context of the firm.