The Risk in Risk Management: Financial Organizations & the Problem of Conformity

by Vit; Gregory B.

• ISBN13: 9780415509855
• ISBN10: 0415509858
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2013-06-04
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Banks take very large risks by consistently herding in the same perilous directions while paradoxically believing that they are safe and unique. Gregory Vit suggests that some groups within organizations including both fraudsters and risk governors can manage risk by understanding the process of conformity and by going against it to their advantage. This book presents a unique framework that uses four different packages of constructs and organizational logics to understand conformity and deviance within investment banks and other large organizations, and thus to help organizations better manage risk. Furthermore, the book assembles eight case studies of massive risk mismanagement and walks the reader through the four very different yet complementary conceptual perspectives on risk that might explain why and how economic rationality was overridden by social forces. With the solid theoretical framework and practical examples to help organizations better understand the forces of conformity and risk that shape their success, this book has important theoretical, academic, managerial, and societal relevance.