Institutional logics and risk management practices in government entitiesevidence from Saudi Arabia

Resum

This study examines the adoption, implementation, and consequences of Risk Management (RM) practices by government entities in Saudi Arabia, a non-western, developing, and Islamic-theocratic country. It investigates the dynamics behind the decision to change how government entities deal with risk and how this decision is put into practice in a dramatically different institutional context from those examined in prior research (e.g., Palermo, 2014). The study builds on the literature on institutional logics (Friedland and Alford, 1991; Lounsbury, 2008; Thornton and Ocasio, 2008; Thornton et al., 2012; Friedland, 2012). It adopts the cross-level model of institutional logics by Thornton et al. (2012) to clarify the interaction of potentially conflicting institutional logics. The institutional logics perspective provides a multi-level framework to examine the relationship between micro-processes at the individual level and a field’s institutional logics (Lounsbury, 2008). It represents a “general model of cultural heterogeneity unbiased toward the western world” (Thornton et al., 2012, p. 18) for understanding the adoption of practices. The empirical analysis is based on a longitudinal case study of a RM project implemented by a government entity of Saudi Arabia. Data were obtained from interviews, observations, and documentary evidence. Our findings show that the adoption and implementation of RM were rooted in a traditional logic, even though the catalyst of the government for adopting a RM culture across government entities was framed within a modernization reform program (modernization logic). The RM project led to an unstable situation; while the project used manifestations of a modernization logic, the actors’ actions were embedded in a traditional logic. The study provides novel evidence of the adoption and implementation of RM in governmental entities in a developing, non-western country, which enriches accounts of drivers and barriers of RM, enhances knowledge about how managers struggle with competing institutional logics, and addresses calls for a deeper understanding of the interplay between institutional logics and managerial practices.