Risk as one of the properties of decisions taken under uncertainty

Aim. The variety of activity types and the corresponding unfavorable outcomes has led to a dramatic diversity in terminology interpretations of the concepts related to risk, including ones in regulatory documents. This circumstance contradicts the primary purpose of the scientific and technical terminology standardization, which is the establishment of unambiguous and non-contradictory terminology in all types of documentation involved in the standardization activities or using the results of such activities. Given the above, this paper aims to estimate the conformity of the definitions of the concept of “risk” in the set of risk management standards with the requirements of the regulatory documents of the Russian standardization system and development of proposals regarding a new interpretation of this concept.

Methods. The need for updating the existing definitions of risk and developing a definition complying with all the requirements of the regulatory documents of the Russian standardization system was based on the methods of terminological, logical-semantic and system analysis.

Results. An analysis of compliance of the existing definitions of the term “risk” with the requirements of the Russian standardization system has been conducted and revealed that none of them fully meets such requirements, therefore the interpretation of the concept of “risk” requires a revision. The paper substantiates the interpretation of risk as one of the properties of the quality of a decision made in situations of uncertainty. This property characterizes the possibility and consequences of not achieving the goal of human activities in the situation of decision-making regarding the selection of further actions under uncertainty. Hence is given the following new definition of the term risk, i.e. one of the properties of the quality of a decision made in a situation of uncertainty that characterizes the possibility and consequences of not achieving the stated goals. The advantages of the proposed interpretation of risk over the existing definitions have been considered.

Conclusions. The paper proposes and substantiates a new definition of the term “risk” that can be considered preferable over the existing versions. The proposed definition is based on most important concepts in terms of the theory and practice of management, i.e. “property”, “quality”, “decision”, “situation”, “goals” that are among the basic categories of human knowledge. This enables the use of both the existing quantitative characteristics of risk and the extension of the system of substantiated characteristics of risk, including those borrowed from the toolboxes of assessment of the manifestation rate of various objects’ properties adopted in other domains of science. The authors show such special features of the proposed interpretation of risk as complexity, situation awareness and goal orientation. The complex and goal-oriented nature of risk prompts to consider actual capabilities to achieve the target characteristics of safety, performance, resource intensity and timeliness of reaching the specified goals of activities. The situational nature of risk as a property of a decision in a specific situation prompts the examination of the entirety of the associated contributing properties of the situation, i.e. the composition of the objects and subjects of human activity, as well as the conditions and circumstances that create specific relations between them. This approach significantly improves the precision of identification of the inventory and nature of the risk factors and therefore expands choices of risk management means and methods.

term, risk, property, quality, situation, uncertainty of outcome, administrative decision, failure to achieve goal, characteristics, indicators

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