<< Chapter < Page Chapter >> Page >

    Dimensions of risk

  • Risk Assessment : The process of determining the degree of risk associated with a certain product or process using scientific methods such as epidemological study or animal bioassay. While using scientific procedures to gain a measure of exactness, risk assessment still brings with it a remainder of uncertainty that cannot be eliminated. A risk assessment issues into two uncertainties, the uncertainty as to whether the harm will occur and the uncertainty as to who (out of the many exposed) will be harmed. Ethics enters into the picture as stakeholders negotiate how to deal with and distribute this uncertainty. Responsible risk practice requires integrating the conflicting values and interests of the involved stakeholders in assessing, communicating, perceiving, and managing risk. It also requires a basis of trust that is difficult to build up given the diverse players that make up the risk taking and bearing situation.
  • Risk Management : The political/social/ethical process of determining if a risk of a certain degree is acceptable given the settled value principles generally held in the community of the risk bearers. Responsible risk management requires (a) assessing harm through the responsible exercise of scientific method and (b) communicating the assessed risk to those likely to bear it. Responsible risk management (i) honors rights such as free and informed consent and due process, (ii) avoids conflicts of interests in determining and communicating risk, (iii) conscientiously works toward a just distribution of risks and benefits, and (iv) avoids paternalism.
  • Risk Perception : How people perceive risk differs from the strict, scientifically determined degree of risk. For example, risk perception factors in voluntariness, control, expected benefits, lack of knowledge, and dread of adverse consequences in working toward a judgment on the acceptability of a given risk by the community of risk bearers. Because the public perceives risk over this broad background of scientific, social, political, and ethical factors, it frequently arrives at conclusions at odds with judgments reached using strictly scientific methods. Those taking a paternalistic attitude toward the public take this difference as evidence of the irrationality of the public and the need for the experts to taken things into their own hands. However, the public attitude toward risk is intelligible and rational when this broader, risk perception perspective is taken into account.
  • Risk Communication : This dimension focuses on how to communicate risk information to risk bearers in order to facilitate distributive justice, free and informed consent, and due process. Responsible risk communication requires translating scientifically determined information into a non-technical vocabulary. Analogies and comparisons help as does the use of concrete language and commonly understood images. But improper use of comparisions and analogies confuses the public and undermines trust.
  • Public : “those persons whose lack of information, technical knowledge, or time for deliberation renders them more or less vulnerable to the powers an engineer wields on behalf of his client or employer” Davis

Questions & Answers

material that allows electric current to pass through
Deng Reply
material which don't allow electric current is called
Deng
insulators
Covenant
how to study physic and understand
Ewa Reply
what is conservative force with examples
Moses
what is work
Fredrick Reply
the transfer of energy by a force that causes an object to be displaced; the product of the component of the force in the direction of the displacement and the magnitude of the displacement
AI-Robot
why is it from light to gravity
Esther Reply
difference between model and theory
Esther
Is the ship moving at a constant velocity?
Kamogelo Reply
The full note of modern physics
aluet Reply
introduction to applications of nuclear physics
aluet Reply
the explanation is not in full details
Moses Reply
I need more explanation or all about kinematics
Moses
yes
zephaniah
I need more explanation or all about nuclear physics
aluet
Show that the equal masses particles emarge from collision at right angle by making explicit used of fact that momentum is a vector quantity
Muhammad Reply
yh
Isaac
A wave is described by the function D(x,t)=(1.6cm) sin[(1.2cm^-1(x+6.8cm/st] what are:a.Amplitude b. wavelength c. wave number d. frequency e. period f. velocity of speed.
Majok Reply
what is frontier of physics
Somto Reply
A body is projected upward at an angle 45° 18minutes with the horizontal with an initial speed of 40km per second. In hoe many seconds will the body reach the ground then how far from the point of projection will it strike. At what angle will the horizontal will strike
Gufraan Reply
Suppose hydrogen and oxygen are diffusing through air. A small amount of each is released simultaneously. How much time passes before the hydrogen is 1.00 s ahead of the oxygen? Such differences in arrival times are used as an analytical tool in gas chromatography.
Ezekiel Reply
please explain
Samuel
what's the definition of physics
Mobolaji Reply
what is physics
Nangun Reply
the science concerned with describing the interactions of energy, matter, space, and time; it is especially interested in what fundamental mechanisms underlie every phenomenon
AI-Robot
Got questions? Join the online conversation and get instant answers!
Jobilize.com Reply

Get Jobilize Job Search Mobile App in your pocket Now!

Get it on Google Play Download on the App Store Now




Source:  OpenStax, Business ethics. OpenStax CNX. Sep 04, 2013 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col10491/1.11
Google Play and the Google Play logo are trademarks of Google Inc.

Notification Switch

Would you like to follow the 'Business ethics' conversation and receive update notifications?

Ask