The Risk Culture Framework: Introducing an Integrative Framework for Holistic Risk Analysis

Risk culture shapes individual, group, organizational, and societal risk perception, and behavior, and, therefore, is a promising concept in risk analysis. Risk culture concepts are popular among practitioners since they have the potential to integrate different research strands and provide practical guidelines. However, such concepts are still ill-defined, and their empirical foundations are limited. We introduce a new framework for risk culture derived from research on organizational culture and risk climate that aims to overcome the shortcomings of current models. The Risk Culture Framework is a 3 × 3 matrix that differentiates three influence domains (i.e., person, social context, and risk situation) and three cultural layers (i.e., observable, non-observable, and implicit factors). The framework can be applied in different contexts and fields of risk research. Each cell of the matrix can be filled with specific, proven factors relevant to the context of interest. The framework aims to enable the integration of different disciplines and approaches, to enlarge the understanding of mechanisms that shape risk perception and behavior, to navigate the conception of research studies, to provide a blueprint for comprehensive risk measures, to guide practical risk analysis, and to facilitate benchmarking for appropriate risk cultures. Considerations for the application of the Risk Culture Framework, as well as its validation through future research, are outlined

The structure of the Risk Culture Framework: Evidence from a health context

   Risk assessment and behavior of social entities, such as societies, organizations or groups, are shaped by shared values and beliefs. Such shared convictions on how risk is perceived and handled are widely labeled as risk culture. While risk culture is a promising approach for comprehensively considering risk aspects in social dynamics, its structure still lacks conceptual clarity. In this regard, the recently introduced Risk Culture Framework (RCF) was aimed at providing an operationalization foundation for risk culture research through a 3x3 grid representing different cultural levels and influencing domains. However, until now, the RCF has neither been empirically applied nor tested. In the current study, the structural fit of the model is evaluated using empirical data pertaining to health risks gathered by an exploratory questionnaire (N = 500). For the sake of methodological consistency, the cultural level of implicit factors was not considered due to its methodological specificity. Confirmatory factor analyses were used to analyze the fit of the assumed model structure as well as that of other applicable models. Model indices for the RCF-oriented risk culture model structure were acceptable and better than those for the other models tested. Overall, results support the theoretical-based structure of the RCF, and provide a foundation for further research on risk culture. Future approaches and applications of the RCF to more specific risk subjects are discussed.</p

Social finance in Europe: The transition from grants to follow-up financing for social enterprises

A large number of social enterprises (SEs) use grants as early-stage financing to establish their ventures. However, we know little about the requirements for SEs to receive grants and their follow-up financing opportunities. Based on an interview study with 13 European SEs, we show that SEs need to go through a resource-intensive application process to be able to receive a grant. To finally receive a grant, we find that nonfinancial aspects (e.g., involved people’s passion) and financial sustainability are the most important factors for convincing possible grant providers to finance an SE’s venture. Furthermore, based on signaling theory, we demonstrate that obtaining a grant increases the likelihood of finding follow-up investors. We suggest that further quantitative research should test our conceptual model, which is built on four propositions we formulate