Does Concern‐Driven Risk Management Provide a Viable Alternative to QRA?

Abstract

This article discusses a concept of concern-driven risk management, in which qualitative expert judgments about whether concerns warrant specified risk management interventions are used in preference to quantitative risk assessment (QRA) to guide risk management decisions. Where QRA emphasizes formal quantitative assessment of the probable consequences caused by the recommended actions, and comparison to the probable consequences of alternatives, including the status quo, concern-driven risk management instead emphasizes perceived urgency or severity of the situation motivating recommended interventions. In many instances, especially those involving applications of the precautionary principle, no formal quantification or comparison of probable consequences for alternative decisions is seen as being necessary (or, perhaps, possible or desirable) prior to implementation of risk management measures. Such concern-driven risk management has been recommended by critics of QRA in several areas of applied risk management. Based on case studies and psychological literature on the empirical performance of judgment-based approaches to decision making under risk and uncertainty, we conclude that, although concern-driven risk management has several important potential political and psychological advantages over QRA, it is not clear that it performs better than (or as well as) QRA in identifying risk management interventions that successfully protect human health or achieve other desired consequences. Therefore, those who advocate replacing QRA with concern-driven alternatives, such as expert judgment and consensus decision processes, should assess whether their recommended alternatives truly outperform QRA, by the criterion of producing preferred consequences, before rejecting the QRA paradigm for practical applications.

Stakeholders’ Risk Perception: A Perspective for Proactive Risk Management in Residential Building Energy Retrofits in China

“…Worry is generally viewed as an active emotional state and is close to adaptive behaviours for risk mitigation [66,67]. Concern can be seen as those worried and upset topics and is closely related to actionable worry [68]. Concern itself can be used to affect people's behaviours, and certain levels of concern can motivate people to take action to handle risks [69,70].…”

Managing the cognitive loads associated with judgment and decision-making in a group of adventure sports coaches: a mixed-method investigation

“…Coaches 1, 2 and 6 identified the 'habitual' use of particular venues that met these requirements 'I know of good venues that allow me to see what I need…' (C6), this approach appeared to implicitly recognised a need to retain cognitive resources for later demands, though was not explicitly highlighted by the coaches. Coaches 2 and 5 identified a potential habitual and familiarity heuristic (Cox, 2007;Girgerenzer, Todd, & ABC Research Group, 1999;Hammond, Keeney, & Raiffa, 1999;McCammon, 2004;Plouso, 1993;Renfrew, Martin, Micklewright, & St Clair Gibson, 2014;Russo & Schoemaker, 1989;Gregg, Hahadevan, & Sedikides, 2017) but recognised the potential for biases and traps with this approach; both guarded against these by recognising the potential for this occurrence and auditing the decisionmaking process and exploiting their community of practice, a meta-cognitive aspect of the coach's activity. Coach 4 described this venue selection stage as 'a straw-man plan' in which logistical aspects (transportation, lifts, shuttles etc.)…”

“…Unsurprisingly, the barriers to anticipatory thinking outlined by Klein and Snowden (2011) reflect a number of heuristic biases identified by a range of authors (Cox, 2007;Girgerenzer, Todd, & ABC Research Group, 1999;Hammond, Keeney, & Raiffa, 1999;McCammon, 2004;Plouso, 1993;Renfrew, Martin, Micklewright, & St Clair Gibson, 2014;Russo & Schoemaker, 1989;Gregg, Hahadevan, & Sedikides, 2017). Reflective of the synergy of CDM and NDM these are potential 'traps' in the whole decision-making process.…”