IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v36y2016i2p320-338.html

The Concepts of Risk, Safety, and Security: Applications in Everyday Language

Author

Listed:
  • Max Boholm
  • Niklas Möller
  • Sven Ove Hansson

Abstract

The concepts of risk, safety, and security have received substantial academic interest. Several assumptions exist about their nature and relation. Besides academic use, the words risk, safety, and security are frequent in ordinary language, for example, in media reporting. In this article, we analyze the concepts of risk, safety, and security, and their relation, based on empirical observation of their actual everyday use. The “behavioral profiles” of the nouns risk, safety, and security and the adjectives risky, safe, and secure are coded and compared regarding lexical and grammatical contexts. The main findings are: (1) the three nouns risk, safety, and security, and the two adjectives safe and secure, have widespread use in different senses, which will make any attempt to define them in a single unified manner extremely difficult; (2) the relationship between the central risk terms is complex and only partially confirms the distinctions commonly made between the terms in specialized terminology; (3) whereas most attempts to define risk in specialized terminology have taken the term to have a quantitative meaning, nonquantitative meanings dominate in everyday language, and numerical meanings are rare; and (4) the three adjectives safe, secure, and risky are frequently used in comparative form. This speaks against interpretations that would take them as absolute, all‐or‐nothing concepts.

Suggested Citation

  • Max Boholm & Niklas Möller & Sven Ove Hansson, 2016. "The Concepts of Risk, Safety, and Security: Applications in Everyday Language," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(2), pages 320-338, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:36:y:2016:i:2:p:320-338
    DOI: 10.1111/risa.12464
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.12464
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/risa.12464?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Åsa Boholm & Hervé Corvellec, 2011. "A relational theory of risk," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(2), pages 175-190, February.
    2. Stanley Kaplan & B. John Garrick, 1981. "On The Quantitative Definition of Risk," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 1(1), pages 11-27, March.
    3. Ortwin Renn, 1998. "Three decades of risk research: accomplishments and new challenges," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 1(1), pages 49-71, January.
    4. Terje Aven & Ortwin Renn, 2009. "On risk defined as an event where the outcome is uncertain," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(1), pages 1-11, January.
    5. Rob P. Rechard, 1999. "Historical Relationship Between Performance Assessment for Radioactive Waste Disposal and Other Types of Risk Assessment," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 19(5), pages 763-807, October.
    6. Sven Ove Hansson, 2010. "Risk: objective or subjective, facts or values," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 231-238, March.
    7. Ralph L. Keeney & Detlof von Winterfeldt, 1986. "Improving Risk Communication," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(4), pages 417-424, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Peter Blokland & Genserik Reniers, 2019. "An Ontological and Semantic Foundation for Safety and Security Science," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-25, October.
    2. Roberta Ingaramo & Luca Pascale, 2020. "An Interpretative Matrix for an Adaptive Design Approach. Italian School Infrastructure: Safety and Social Restoration," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-22, October.
    3. Roberta Troisi & Gaetano Alfano, 2019. "Towns as Safety Organizational Fields: An Institutional Framework in Times of Emergency," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(24), pages 1-18, December.
    4. Max Boholm, 2019. "Risk and Quantification: A Linguistic Study," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(6), pages 1243-1261, June.
    5. Robert L. Heath & Jaesub Lee & Michael J. Palenchar & Laura L. Lemon, 2018. "Risk Communication Emergency Response Preparedness: Contextual Assessment of the Protective Action Decision Model," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 38(2), pages 333-344, February.
    6. Esang Lazarus Esitikot & Akaninyene Edet Ekong & Mary Ubong Umoh & Clement O. Obadimu & Gerald Ndubuisi Okeke & Anthony Akadi & Utibe Amos Ofon, 2024. "The Struggle to Protect the Worker: Safety and Security – Enemies or Friends?," International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation, International Journal of Research and Scientific Innovation (IJRSI), vol. 11(11), pages 305-313, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Roger Flage & Terje Aven & Enrico Zio & Piero Baraldi, 2014. "Concerns, Challenges, and Directions of Development for the Issue of Representing Uncertainty in Risk Assessment," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 34(7), pages 1196-1207, July.
    2. Jamie K. Wardman & Gabe Mythen, 2016. "Risk communication: against the Gods or against all odds? Problems and prospects of accounting for Black Swans," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(10), pages 1220-1230, November.
    3. Niël Almero Krüger & Natanya Meyer, 2021. "The Development of a Small and Medium-Sized Business Risk Management Intervention Tool," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-14, July.
    4. Zio, E., 2018. "The future of risk assessment," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 176-190.
    5. Christian Scheve & Markus Lange, 2023. "Risk entanglement and the social relationality of risk," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-10, December.
    6. Terje Aven, 2012. "Foundational Issues in Risk Assessment and Risk Management," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 32(10), pages 1647-1656, October.
    7. Ioanna Ioannou & Jaime E. Cadena & Willy Aspinall & David Lange & Daniel Honfi & Tiziana Rossetto, 2022. "Prioritization of hazards for risk and resilience management through elicitation of expert judgement," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 112(3), pages 2773-2795, July.
    8. Aven, Terje, 2013. "Practical implications of the new risk perspectives," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 136-145.
    9. Aven, Terje, 2018. "How the integration of System 1-System 2 thinking and recent risk perspectives can improve risk assessment and management," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 237-244.
    10. Terje Aven, 2020. "Risk Science Contributions: Three Illustrating Examples," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(10), pages 1889-1899, October.
    11. Mostafa Aliyari & Yonas Z Ayele & Abbas Barabadi & Enrique Lopez Droguett, 2019. "Risk analysis in low-voltage distribution systems," Journal of Risk and Reliability, , vol. 233(2), pages 118-138, April.
    12. Sarah J. Cowell & Robyn Fairman & Ragnar E. Lofstedt, 2002. "Use of Risk Assessment and Life Cycle Assessment in Decision Making: A Common Policy Research Agenda," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 22(5), pages 879-894, October.
    13. Zygimantas Meskauskas & Egidijus Kazanavicius, 2022. "About the New Methodology and XAI-Based Software Toolkit for Risk Assessment," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-15, May.
    14. Jonas Eduardsen & Svetla Marinova, 2016. "Decision-makers' risk perception in the internationalisation of small and medium-sized firms," International Journal of Export Marketing, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 1(1), pages 4-26.
    15. Tom McLeod Logan & Terje Aven & Seth David Guikema & Roger Flage, 2022. "Risk science offers an integrated approach to resilience," Nature Sustainability, Nature, vol. 5(9), pages 741-748, September.
    16. Konstantinos Kazaras & Konstantinos Kirytopoulos, 2014. "Challenges for current quantitative risk assessment (QRA) models to describe explicitly the road tunnel safety level," Journal of Risk Research, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(8), pages 953-968, September.
    17. Huang, Dan & Lu, Yanchi & Tong, Zhaomin & Pang, Bowen & Liu, Yaolin & Liu, Yanfang, 2026. "Governing non-grain production of farmland: A differentiated strategy based on grain production loss risk," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    18. Gundula Glowka & Andreas Kallmünzer & Anita Zehrer, 2021. "Enterprise risk management in small and medium family enterprises: the role of family involvement and CEO tenure," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 1213-1231, September.
    19. Aven, Terje, 2020. "Three influential risk foundation papers from the 80s and 90s: Are they still state-of-the-art?," Reliability Engineering and System Safety, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    20. Henrik Hassel & Alexander Cedergren, 2019. "Exploring the Conceptual Foundation of Continuity Management in the Context of Societal Safety," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(7), pages 1503-1519, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:36:y:2016:i:2:p:320-338. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.