Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage
Abstract
Recent project-management literature and high-profile disasters—the financial crisis, the BP
Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the Fukushima nuclear accident—illustrate the flaws of
traditional risk models for complex projects. This research examines how various groups with
interests in the Arctic offshore define risks. The findings link the wicked problem framework and
the emerging paradigm of Project Management of the Second Order (PM-2). Wicked problems
are problems that are unstructured, complex, irregular, interactive, adaptive, and novel. The
authors synthesize literature on the topic to offer strategies for navigating wicked problems,
provide new variables to deconstruct traditional risk models, and integrate objective and
subjective schools of risk analysis
