Optentia Research Programme 06
Behavioural Risk Work
Understanding how people actually respond to uncertainty, make risk-related decisions and sustain organisational resilience.
Programme focus
Behaviour. Uncertainty. Resilience.
Applied research into risk-related behaviour and decision-making in complex organisational environments.
About the programme
What do people actually do when risk becomes real?
This programme seeks to strengthen organisational resilience by understanding and improving the risk work performed by groups and their members.
Risk management describes the specified activities through which an organisation expects stakeholders to protect it against risk events and support its objectives. Risk work describes the risk-related behaviour that people actually perform in practice.
These behaviours often represent adaptive responses to uncertainty and risk in complex environments. The programme conducts applied research to help organisational stakeholders account for uncertainty when making decisions that could affect collective objectives.
01
Observe
Study the risk-related behaviour that occurs in real organisational settings.
02
Understand
Explain how people adapt to uncertainty and negotiate risk in complex environments.
03
Strengthen
Improve decisions, risk practices and the organisation's capacity to remain resilient.
Programme leadership
Leadership and researchers
Photo to come
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Extended expertise
Extraordinary professors
Photo to come
Prof Marise Born
Photo to come
Prof Gert Jan Hofstede
Photo to come
Prof Theo Kocken
Programme outputs
Research in practice
Publications
Recent scholarship
A curated selection of recent programme publications will be added here, with links to the journal or NWU repository.
Applied projects
Risk work in context
Projects will be presented through their organisational setting, uncertainty, observed behaviour, findings and practical contribution.
Connect with the programme
Interested in behavioural risk research?
Contact the programme leader about research alignment, organisational collaboration or applied studies.