Managing Risk in Organizations

The unprecedented risk and uncertainty all organizations have experienced with the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted for all the importance of having strategies in place for managing high levels of risk and uncertainty. When facing risk and uncertainty, organizational outcomes depend on the quality of leaders’ decision making and risk management practices. This course draws on insights from cognitive psychology, economics, statistics, and decision sciences to examine good and bad risk management practices at the individual and organizational levels. Frameworks and practices to improve risk management will be introduced. We will study the role of emotion, affect, and intuitive thinking in risk decisions. We’ll look at how behaviour is shaped by context and existing mental models. Risk management will be explored via case analysis, discussion, exercises, guest presentations and a project. Best practices including some analytical models will be introduced, although this course is more qualitative and behavioural. This course complements courses that focus on the analytical aspects of risk management by focusing on the human and organizational aspects.