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Risk appetite is widely accepted as a guiding metaphor for strategic risk management, yet metaphors for complex practice are hard to critique. This paper aims to apply an analytical framework comprising three categories of flaw – futility, perversity and jeopardy – to critically explore the risk appetite metaphor. Taking stock of management literature emphasising the need for metaphor to give ideation to complex management challenges and activities and recognising the need for high-level metaphor within strategic risk management in particular, the authors propose a means to scrutinise the risk appetite metaphor and thereby illustrate its use for further management metaphors.

The authors apply a structured analytical perspective designed to scrutinise conceivably any purportedly progressive social measure. The three flaw categories are used to warn that organisational risk appetite specifications can be: futile vis-a-vis their goals, productive of perverse outcomes with respect to these goals and so misleading about the true potential for risk management as to jeopardise superior alternative use of risk management resource. These flaw categories are used to structure a critical review of the risk appetite metaphor, which moves towards identifying its most fundamental flaws.

Two closely interrelated antecedents to flaws discussed within the three flaw categories are proposed: first, false confidence in organisational risk assessment and, second, organisational blindness towards contributions of behavioural risk-taking to true organisational risk exposure. A theory of high (over-optimistic, excessive or inappropriate) risk-taking organisations explores flaws within the three flaw categories with reference to these antecedents under organisational-cultural circumstances where the risk appetite metaphor is most needed and yet most problematic.

The paper is highly original in its representation of risk management as an organisational practice reliant on metaphor and in proposing a structured means to challenge it as a dominant guiding metaphor where it has gained widespread uncritical acceptance. The discussion is also innovative in its representation of high risk-taking organisations as likely to harbour strong managerial motives, aptitudes and capacities for covert and illicit forms of risk-taking which, being subversive and sometimes reactionary towards risk appetite specifications, may cause particularly serious futility, perversity and jeopardy problems. To conclude, the theory and its implications are summarised for practitioner and educational use.

The purpose of this paper is to explore, using fine-grained exploratory multi-case studies, organisational learning practices – and associated constraints – impacting the performance of four small- and medium-sized project organisations which deliver energy efficiency projects in South Africa and whose learning practice mixes are of wider significance for the emerging project society in the region.

The unit of analysis is the Energy Efficiency Demand Side Management (EEDSM) programme; a US$104m grant funded the initiative directed at supporting energy efficient retro-fit projects across local municipalities in South Africa. Thematic analysis is undertaken, based on multiple exploratory interviews with project practitioners working for small- and medium-sized EEDSM project organisations.

Recognising the criticality of tacit knowledge as a focus for learning, within unstructured, novel, non-routine and technically specialised learning contexts in particular, the widespread lack of organisational harnessing through linkages to strategy and performance are noted, and advocacy is offered for the development of appropriate learning cultures linked to communities of practice that bring specialists together from across regional project societies.

The socio-political context of the EEDSM programme, although briefly addressed for its organisational cultural implications, was not given detailed consideration in the exploratory interviews. This would have enhanced the idiographic complexity of the findings, while also reducing prospects for distilling generalisable organisational learning improvement opportunities for emerging project societies. However, the study does not seek to provide evidence for specific learning practice effects on performance as this was not something the interviewees felt able to comment on in significant detail.

Learning practice studies for small- and medium-sized project organisations remains sparse, so are studies of business environments within developing countries, in general, or sub-Saharan Africa, in particular. Looking beyond narrow individual project views of performance, the present study’s project society-based business environment is theorised as both constraining and benefiting from the project-learning practices discussed by the respondents.

This essay contributes to the ongoing exposition of a project management-focused understanding of “public policy” implementation. Distinct from previous studies that take a predominantly administrative sciences perspective, the delivery and implementation of publicly funded infrastructure projects as an instrument of public policy is explored through the lens of legal frameworks.

We adopt the explanation-building review approach to provide descriptions and explanations of the relevant enablers and context necessary for the successful delivery and implementation of publicly funded infrastructure projects.

The ambiguity associated with public policy is more likely to hinder than facilitate the use of publicly funded infrastructure projects as preferred instruments of choice for implementing public policy.

Despite substantial interest among academics and practitioners in utilising projects as tools for public policy implementation, thorough discussions on the legal complexities inherent in these projects remain scarce.

This conceptual paper aims to explore how supply chain managers deal with social threats to supply chains, in the process of demonstrating the potency of a largely neglected strand of realist social theory. This theory, as posited, sheds a great deal of light on the behavioural reality of how supply chain managers operate within the social aspects of their risk environments.

The paper is presented as a narrative synthesis of classical realist sociological literature.

The Machiavellian approach provides a template that can be used to help academics and practitioners understand how and why supply chain managers orient themselves to the social threats they confront in very different ways. The theory’s contention that the behavioural reality can be subdivided between two basic patterns allows it to serve as a constructively simple template for becoming attuned to ways in which supply chain managers socially construct and act within their social threat environments.

The growing social complexity of supply chains gives behavioural responses a complexity reduction function. The authors theorise that such patterns, once activated, may not necessarily adapt rationally as guides to optimise the chance of success against the full range of social threats they are likely to encounter.

Cross-disciplinary supply chain management research is increasingly drawing upon sociology and behavioural science to facilitate greater understanding of not only the supply chain environment but also the roles of supply chain managers as relationship influencers and managers of conflict. The authors posit that Machiavellian–realist social theory can contribute to supply chain management scholarship by offering a constructively simple approach to evaluate the behavioural realities associated with social threats.

This paper aims to distil the management challenge pertaining to B2B SME branding strategy, communication and constraint in the emerging market context of Chinese manufacturing.

Complemented by 19 interviews, this paper adopted a novel methodological approach – netnographic analysis – to investigate a selection of Chinese manufacturing SMEs.

Findings revealed three managerial approaches to B2B brand management: conservative, flexible and integrated-exploratory.

Understanding the three approaches offers managerial implications for Chinese manufacturer SMEs to redesign their branding practice. Informed with a better understanding of the available option, they will be able to achieve high value-added production through branding to gain competitiveness. This study sheds light on B2B SME branding from an emerging market perspective, an area that has been largely neglected in the existing literature.

Findings make a novel contribution to B2B SME brand management literature by clarifying practical management issues pertinent to Chinese emerging market manufacturers in particular, and offering widely generalizable lessons for B2B brand management research.

We identify and further aggregate the most commonly engaged risk factors in dry port projects into dimensions. Noting the importance of developing a multi-perspective view of risk, we further assess the priority, interdependency and heterogeneity of the identified risk dimensions.

We identified 44 risk factors from the literature, which were aggregated via exploratory factor analysis (EFA) into 8 major risk dimensions. We employ a fuzzy-based decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) relationship map to articulate various relationships among the risk dimensions.

“Cost” emerged as the most important risk influencing the success of the dry port project, followed by “location,” “accessibility,” “infrastructural” and “operational,” which were also ranked prominently.

This study offers significant insight into the management of risk in dry port projects. By aggregating key risk factors into distinct dimensions, we develop a structured framework for effective risk assessment and management. The insights gleaned from the study extend globally, as it serves as a concrete knowledge base to understand potential barriers to successful dry port projects.

We explore the design risk factors and associated managerial practices driving collaborative risk management for design efficacy in green building projects. By illuminating project design risk as an important project risk category in its own right, the study contributes to our understanding of optimising design efficacies for collaborative project risk management.

The study comprises exploratory interviews conducted with 27 industry project practitioners involved in the design and delivery/implementation of Green Star-certified building projects in South Africa.

The findings discursively highlight seven sources of design risk. We also identify seven specific collaborative risk management practices for design efficacy emerging from a consideration of how risk environments vary in the Green Star-certified projects, each with its own project design risk implications.

The study advances our understanding of how collaborations emerging from particular relational yet context-specific practices can be optimised to strengthen project risk management.

Despite the increasing number of studies investigating environmentally sustainable practices in different sectors, no research exists on the issues related to the success factors for implementing environmentally sustainable practices in the utilities sector. To partially fill this research gap, the purpose of this study is to empirically examine these success factors in a public utilities organization in the United Arab Emirates.

An integrated interpretive structural modeling and fuzzy cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification approach was implemented to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) and to model and analyze the relationships among them.

Thirteen CSFs were identified and the relationships among them were represented by a seven-level hierarchical graphical model, and six CSFs were identified as drivers of success: government policies, regulations and environmental awareness programs; organization sustainability strategies; top management commitment; organizational capabilities; social and environmental responsibility; and eco-knowledge.

This is first kind of study to identify CSFs for implementing environmentally sustainable practices in the utilities sector. The results could guide government policymakers and decision-makers in utilities organizations that are interested in implementing environmentally sustainable practices.

This paper aims to draw on historical conceptions of true and false prudence within the broader context of virtue ethics ideas, to create a prudence framework for developing risk-and-ethics cultures in organisations.

The authors use a theoretical analytical approach as a means of examining plausible representations of risk as ethical practice.

While the ethical ideal of true prudence is explained primarily with reference to psychological theories of generativity, false prudence is explained as undesirable, primarily with reference to psychological problems of narcissism and the broader dark triad. True and false prudence are represented as centring upon very different motivations for foresight, each of which might set the cultural tone for organisational risk management.

This paper’s main contribution is therefore to call attention to the benefits for organisations of reflecting upon differences between true and false prudence when planning the risk management they want.

The purpose is to identify the main characteristics of dry ports (DPs) in Brazil, discussing the role of this logistic player, challenges and opportunities. Furthermore, this study provides a structured framework to drive DP decision-makers, identifying and assessing a network of means–end objectives, which could be replicable to other contexts.

This article approached initially a literature review and exploratory research to discuss the main characteristics of DPs in Brazil. The second step was to conduct a qualitative analysis following the value-focused thinking (VFT) approach in two case studies in Pernambuco state to assess the achievement of the main objectives.

This article identified that the main characteristics of DPs in Brazil are offering additional services with a cheaper storage cost, handling mainly import cargo and being connected to seaports through highways. Moreover, this study resulted in a framework to assess the objectives of DPs, which could be replicable in other contexts, improving the current operations of DPs.

The framework to assess DPs' objectives bridged the gap between the literature and the practice working as a tool to drive decision-makers to improve the current performance of DPs in Brazil. Additionally, the main issues, challenges and opportunities discussed provide managers, policymakers and DPs operators with valuable insights into this theme.

This paper is the first study to present a framework to assess the objectives of DPs as a valuable tool to drive decision-makers to improve DPs operations. From this study, lessons could be learned and the process described could be replicable in other countries.