Decision Making Under Risk in Organisations: The Case of German Waste Management

This title was first published in 2000. By comparing how two local authorities deal with the risks involved in Germany's environmental waste policy, this text questions how organizations deal with making decisions in situations of risk in general. Using a combination of risk sociology and institutional theories of organization, Kamper examines how organizations develop institutional structures to cope with risk-taking decision-making. In doing so, he challenges the commonly-held view that the most important factor required when making risky decisions is rationality, and instead argues that the key is an ability to absorb uncertainty. The volume seeks to show how organizations develop institutional structures to cope with risk-taking which both absorbs uncertainty and allocates responsibility, and how an understanding of social structures is crucial to understanding how such decisions are made by organizations.