Managing Risk at Big School

1. Managing Risk at Big School Professor Edward P. Borodzicz Portsmouth Business School

2. About me! • Trained as Anthropologist and Psychologist. • Began studies looking at human behaviour in crisis and disasters. • Designed and Evaluated Simulation Exercises for Emergency Services in UK, France and China. • Set up two MSc’s at Leicester and Southampton Universities. • Interested in the Design and Evaluation of Crisis Management Training for Business Risk ‘Continuity’ Games.

3. The Context • More people • Inter-connectivity • Different ways of living • Greater expectation of a risk free environment • Regulation, Business Continuity and Hefce

4. A Brief History of Risk • Risk: As old as the oldest trade? • Ancient philosophers of East and West • Traditional/primitive societies - Oracles • Documented among academics for over a Century • (Todhunter, 1865) • ‘Speculative Risk’ and Capitalism

5. Risk and Social Sciences • Risk and Irrationality • Systemic Failure • Homeostatic Risks

6. Some Theoretical Perspectives 1Psychology • Decision making theorists question the notion of human rationality. • Humans regularly make irrational choices on a regular basis, even when future events have a known probability. • Dispositional factors can be found to mediate risk taking in experimental settings. • It is difficult to measure the difference in people’s behaviour in real and simulated risk situations.

10. Some Theoretical Perspectives 2Systems Theory • Theory originates from the work of Von Bertalanffy in the 1920’s. • Von Bertalanffy looked at Organic Systems. • Outwardly variant systems display common internal similarities. • Theory has been applied in a number of diverse contexts. • Interest from Theorists Studying Disaster Causation and Management

11. Some Theoretical Perspectives 2Systems Theory • Perrow's Normal Accident Theory • Turners Model • Isomorphic Learning • The Resident Pathogen Metaphor • High Reliability Systems

12. Some Theoretical Perspectives 3 Risk Homeostasis • Probability of risk is always 1 • Road safety • Child proof bottle tops! • Legislation and regulation should be considered in its Meaningful Context • Fix a steel spike to the steering wheel

14. A Summary of Contemporary Risk • Risk means different things to different people in different contexts. • It is familiar risks that cause the most problems • There is an apparent irrationality in the way people perceive risks • It is more difficult to distinguish between pure and speculative risk for insurance purposes. • The Organisation is the risk!

15. Risk Strategies • Risk Identification registers and matrixes • Risk Avoidance • Transfer • Risk Retention • Risk Reduction

16. Human Issues • Whistleblowers • Reputation Risk • Poor HRM

17. Threats to Universities 1 • Fire and Flood • Fraud and embezzlement • System failures (human and technical) • Litigation Culture (Both students and staff) • Nutters • Whistleblowers • Corporate Manslaughter

18. Threats to Universities 2 • Terrorism • Rapid Fluctuation in World Markets • Secrecy • Compartmentalised approach to risk management • Trial by committee • Dealing with Impossible Workloads

19. Some (Anonymous!) Case Studies • The Visiting Research fellow from Hell • The Naughty Professor • Nasty Problem with the computer • The VC’s travel arrangements • Racing • Pedro de Lanuza!

20. High Principles at Big School! • Reasons Pathogenic Model • Schizophrenia

21. At Departmental Levels 1. Tribunals/grievance procedures by teaching and research staff over discrimination 2. Academic staff turnover 3. High levels of sickness/absence/stress 4. Administrative staff turnover 5. High number of appeals or cases of litigation brought by students 6. Poor levels of course completions 7. High number of internal Staff PhD’s by publication. 8. Low number of PhD’s qualifications from other universities.

22. At Departmental Levels 9. Teaching staff administering their own course evaluations or no course evaluations 10. Reports of a poor working culture 11.High outputs of research despite poor level of research income or vice versa! 12.Lack of transparent processes for distributing travel and conference budgets. 13. Checking that minuted meetings were actually attended 14 Failure to conduct exit interviews for staff independently of the department 15. Failure to conduct exit interviews for students administered independently of the department 16. High sickness/stress/grievance levels reported after QAA examinations

23. At faculty levels: 1. Low usage of Whistle-blowing procedures despite high numbers of the above 2. Health and Safety complaints 3. A failure to resolve grievance procedures by teaching and research staff without recourse to Unions or outside representation. 4. A failure to resolve grievance procedures without at least a threat of litigation. 5. Litigation 6. Failure to check staff CV’s systematically - do these relate to verifiable qualifications. 7.Failure to check student CV’s systematically - do these relate to verifiable qualifications. 8. Transparency distributions of research funding within faculty. 9. Distribution of sabbaticals

24. If all risks cannot be managed, then we need to know how to respond ? • Generic Crisis Training • Risk Management through Joined up thinking!

25. Crisis Management • Understand event quality • Improve communication • Be prepared to break rules • Become your own terrorist!

26. Resilience = understand and manage crises

27. Some tips for good simulation practice • First, simulations should display an external simplicity which masks their internal complexity. • Second, games should have some theoretical underpinning. Simulations should be designed with some clear purpose. • Third, games should contain 'an element of surprise'. • Fourth, the social structure of the group of players may conflict too strongly with the desired power structure in the game.

28. Some tips for good simulation practice • First, simulations should display an external simplicity which masks their internal complexity. • Second, games should have some theoretical underpinning. Simulations should be designed with some clear purpose. • Third, games should contain 'an element of surprise'. • Fourth, the social structure of the group of players may conflict too strongly with the desired power structure in the game.

29. Some tips for good simulation practice • Fifth, in management training, 'verisimilitude' is valued more highly than realism. • Sixth, there is a difference between running and merely administering a game. • Seventh, games are culture sensitive. • Eighth, all simulation games will display an emotional impact.