The Genesis and Metamorphoses of Risk

Abstract

Each business activity and also an individual person face risk every day. But what is risk? People have different attitudes to risk. Natural survival instincts make some people use all possible means to avoid injury or loss. These decisions are not decisions but more of inner instincts of survival. If we move from an individual to an organization, standards and rules become more complex and more formal. When activities become more complex, instinctive and institutional patterns of behaviour forming the basis of personal risk management become inadequate and decisions become more complicated. The theory of risk has been a subject dealt with in many available books by domestic and foreign authors and risk management as such has been a subject of detailed research. We can even claim it constitutes an independent part of the theory of economy.