Opposing risk management theories: The context of large-scale projects

Abstract

The normal accidents and high reliability organisations theories are widely known as presenting the intellectual discourse between two opposing schools of thought for risk management of complex systems as the first is tagged as pessimistic while the latter is labelled as optimistic. Due to high level of complexity and riskiness that is associated with large-scale project, discussing these two theories in this context is of high relevance. The context of developing countries was selected as investments in these countries are generally risky due to the high level of instability. This research showed that NAT and HRO are complementary rather than contradictory in such context. © 2014 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.