• hybridity
• publicness
• institutional categories
• multiple logics
• public sector
• risk management

Purpose – This research investigates how organisational actors implement risk management practices within a state-owned enterprise. To date, existing literature has discussed only marginally the dynamics and the role of organisational actors other than the risk manager in the risk management process. How organisational actors engage in riskwork and contribute to the risk management system needs to be investigated further. To this end, this research explores the interpersonal dynamics around riskwork and risk management, specifically analysing how organisational actors’ (inter)actions and (dis)agreements shape the organisational risk management apparatus and substantiate day-to-day risk management practices. In addition, this research intends to provide insights into how ‘publicness’ and ‘hybridity’ traits of state-owned enterprises affect riskwork and risk management practices.

Design/Methodology/Approach – Drawing on group formation theory, this research theorises the level in-between the micro (individual) and meso-level (organisation) of the interinstitutional system sustained by the institutional logics theory. By developing the concept of ‘institutional categories’ as collective guiding principles followed in practice by different groups within the company, the space where (inter)actions and (dis)agreements on risk management arise is explored. A qualitative single case study about a state-owned enterprise active in the multi-utility sector is adopted to gain insights into the preconditions and the manifestation of interpersonal dynamics. Interviews with individuals, internal and external to the organisation, and several accounting and non-accounting documents are analysed to explore further the context in which the multi-utility operates. The Gioia method is employed for coding the interviews conducted within the multi-utility as it is a viable method to scrutinise, through a bottom-up approach, the ideas and aspirations driving individuals in their daily riskwork and risk management activities.

Findings – Consistent with the theoretical expansion of the institutional logics theory, individuals, when (inter)acting at the intermediate level, form groups, each following a collective guiding principle that unfolds in unique riskwork or risk management practices. This research contributes to the theory of institutional logics by introducing the idea of an intermediate dimension (i.e. the group level). This level can provide insights as to why individuals do not always act according to one overarching and prioritised logic but change their actions according to the collective principles and practices they endorse. This research also contributes to the public sector risk management literature showing how, within state-owned enterprises, dimensions of ‘publicness’ and ‘hybridity’ are brought forward by individuals through collective institutional categories and end up infiltrating riskwork and risk management practices. In particular, the research indicates that attributes of publicness are more likely present in risk management practices developed by groups that intend to orient those practices externally to different stakeholders (i.e. by institutional categories with an external orientation). In contrast, internally-oriented riskwork and risk management practices are less infused by publicness. Likewise, the findings suggest that different dimensions of ‘hybridity’ can inhabit one institutional category having implications on the practice promoted by the group of that particular category.

Originality – The originality of this research resides in the novel theorisation that expands the institutional logics approach. Also, by placing action and practice on a more situated level, this theorisation provides a less abstracted motivation on what happens within the organisational boundaries and the role of practice in bringing forward organisational action around risk. Also, this study is the first to scrutinise consciously two characteristics of state-owned enterprises – i.e. ‘publicness’ and ‘hybridity’- and their implications for riskwork and risk management practices.