Risk Watch: Thought Leadership in Risk—Spring 2018

For this 21st issue of Risk Watch, we reached out to academics Steve Maguire of McGill University and Cynthia Hardy of the University of Melbourne for the first of a two-part contribution. This first installment deals with New Approaches to Organizing Risk. The authors examine the three modes that organizations use to approach risk and explain how this “default” approach may not always be the most effective one. They propose some alternatives, which they illustrate with real-life events. Watch for the Fall 2018 edition of Risk Watch for the second installment by Maguire and Hardy.

Natalie C. McDonald—the owner and founder of a boutique law firm specializing in Canadian employment law—offers The Weinstein Effect in Canada. Shecautions that sexual harassment is “one of the most significant risks for the workplace today.” Natalie provides a sobering reminder of the negative impact of sexual harassment in the workplace and points to best practices that Canadian employers should adopt to address this risk.

Against the background of a fast-changing world and transformations in the risk profession, the Institute of Risk Management (IRM) felt the time was right to investigate what the future of risk and risk management could look like in 2025. Carolyn Williams of IRM shares the main findings of Risk Agenda 2025. Find out what risk managers around the world see as the key changes that lie ahead.

For this issue’s “Book Review,” John Ebsary—a former member of The Conference Board of Canada’s Strategic Risk Council who will be familiar to many of the readers of Risk Watch— shares his impressions of The Ostrich Paradox, a 2017 book written by Wharton School professors Robert Meyer and Howard Kunreuther. This must-have book contains examples of catastrophic events to help us understand the biases that result from our instinctive perceptions of risk.