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The enactment of risk categories: The role of information systems in organizing and re-organizing risk management practices in the energy industry

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Abstract

This research explores the role of information systems in risk management during a twenty year period when new governance arrangements led to enterprise-wide change in the UK energy markets. We present a longitudinal case study documenting the role of “A-Trade” transaction and risk management software in the adaptation of energy organizations to competitive demands associated with a simultaneous process of privatization and liberalization. During the design, development and implementation of A-Trade, multiple forms of expertise were brought together in what we describe as organizational encounters with risk. The story of “A-Trade” highlights the shift from a traditional engineer-led culture of risk cognition to market-oriented financial risk management. Our findings are that, firstly, that energy transaction and risk management software development provided an important learning ground during periods of paradigmatic change. Secondly, we provide insights into the enactment of risk categories and the challenges associated with establishing an information infrastructure to support risk management.

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Notes

  1. In other words, the processes by which a taken-for-granted know-how congeals (see Berger and Luckman 1967:3) about risk management in organizations. From a social constuctivist perspective, risks don’t lie outside of society and culture but are instead viewed as “assemblages of meanings, logics and beliefs cohering around material phenomena, giving these phenomena form and substance” (Lupton 1999 p.14).

  2. We wish to make a clear distinction here between research focusing on the broader financial services (e.g. banking, insurance, accounting) and financial markets (a way of gathering people for so that they can buy and sell (trade) financial instruments, commodities, or fungible items of value in a relatively troublefree manner).

  3. Notable exceptions include Drummond (1996a, b) on Taurus in the London Stock Exchange. While Barrett and Walsham (1999) are widely cited in IS research and many of their points are apposite their article focuses on insurance which falls within the broader financial services.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Information Systems and Innovation Group, Department of Management, The London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK

    Susan Scott

  2. Independent Energy Risk Management Consultant, London, UK

    Nicholas Perry

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  1. Susan Scott
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  2. Nicholas Perry
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Correspondence to Susan Scott.

Appendix

Appendix

Table 4 Profile of fieldwork interviews
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Table 5 Major events in the energy industry mapped onto case study chronology
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Scott, S., Perry, N. The enactment of risk categories: The role of information systems in organizing and re-organizing risk management practices in the energy industry. Inf Syst Front 14, 125–141 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-009-9223-7

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