Paradigms lost: Multi-disciplinary working and the management of socio-technical risk within public management

The manner in which public-sector organisations search for effective approaches to the management of risk from socio-technical systems has generated academic debate across a number of disciplines and, in the wake of the... [ view full abstract ]

The manner in which public-sector organisations search for effective approaches to the management of risk from socio-technical systems has generated academic debate across a number of disciplines and, in the wake of the financial crisis, increasingly within public administration and business education. The question of whether it is possible to design systems and processes that will allow for the prevention of risk and the role that technical expertise can play in that process have become key areas for debate. There is also a parallel debate that relates to the disciplinary origins that are required to deal with elements of risk across public management. Whilst public management organisations have a role within the regulation of risk (and the associated development of mitigation programmes) they also generate a series of risks that also have to be managed. This generates a duality around regulation and generation that is unique to the public sector. This duality generates a number of problems around the trans-disciplinary nature of those risks, the governance arrangements associated with them, and the manner in which risk (and the underlying scientific basis for analysing them) is analysed and communicated. Given the multi-disciplinary nature of many forms of risk, this generates challenges for public administration researchers if they are to be able to work across the portfolio of risks that are ‘managed’ across the public sector. This paper considers the ways in which we deal with risk and uncertainty in systems design (in dealing with the regulatory function), the manner in which those processes impact on organisational effectiveness within public management, and the implications that it has decision- and policy-making. It does so from the perspective of the literatures relating to the management of socio-technical systems and, in particular, from within the debates surrounding what has become known as high reliability theory. The paper considers whether the conventional approaches to education and research are appropriate to developing an effective approach to dealing with complex, multi-level problems associated with risks. The paper concludes by considering the changes that should be made to the curriculum for both public management and business education that would provide a platform for effective intervention around risk issues.