Teaching Safety Risk Management: On The Importance Of Integrating Economic And Safety Perspectives

Abstract

When teaching risk management, within the area of safety, the main focus is typically on safety management principles. The basis for these principles, and for traditional safety thinking, is the adoption of a cautionary mindset (cautionary principle), where attention is given to uncertainty, what could happen in the future and how to reduce or avoid possible consequences. In this paper, we point out the importance of also paying some attention to economic principles, to facilitate good resource utilization. Resources are in general scarce, and a stranger weight placed on the uncertainties than should be done from a traditional economic perspective may contribute to a sub-optimal use of resources. Even if the scope is limited only to risk management, negative impacts on safety may then occur. However, as the traditional economic perspective in some situations may also contribute to too little weight being placed on the uncertainties, we argue for the importance of integrating safety and economic perspectives when teaching safety risk management.