Description: The one bad apple spoiling the whole barrel has become a common metaphor used with reference to risk culture in organisations. This "inside-out" perspective begins with the individual as the unit of analysis and follows with inferences to the broader environment. Since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008, risk culture for many has become the explanation for shortcomings, poor decisions, and moral failures in organisations. This volume presents an institutional perspective of the forces that shape risk culture, and culture more generally, in organisations through a multi-disciplinary examination from a variety of leading academics and subject specialists. The authors demonstrate that firms play a role as manufacturers and managers of risk and they challenge common conceptions that attribute risk to chance circumstances or rogue behaviours. The foundational concepts needed for an institutional view of risk culture are highlighted with subsequent links to significant developments within society and firms.
Brief description: Kern Alexander is Professor of Banking and Financial Market Regulation at the University of Zurich. His research focuses on the regulation of financial markets. He is the author of Principles of Banking Regulation (Cambridge University Press, 2019), and co-author of Brexit and Financial Services: Law and Policy (2018), and Economic Sanctions: Law and Public Policy (2009).
Review Quotes: 'Culture is contagious, within and across organisations. The global financial crisis provides no better illustration of that cultural contagion and its adverse consequences for individual firms and society at large. That makes understanding culture, its origins and propagation, crucial if we are to keep organisations and our economic and financial systems at a safe distance from cultural cliff-edges. This volume, by international renowned experts in the field, is a valuable contribution to improving both our understanding of organisational culture and the policies needed to avoid a future crashing of cultures.' Andrew Haldane, Chief Economist, Bank of England