Constructing, Contesting, and Overloading: A Study of Risk Management Framing

Abstract

In this study, we examine the ways in which actuarial consultants attempt to motivate their clients to see pension-related accounting regulations and market volatility as ‘risks’ that need to be managed through particular risk-mitigating technologies. This study is predicated on 23 interviews conducted with actuarial consultants and their clients and consulting agencies’ publically available documents. Taking framing theory and the sociological literature on risk as conceptual starting points, we find that consultants engage in specific framing strategies to persuade clients by rhetorically weaving a series of financial risk objects, financial de-risking strategies, and calls for action. We also find that current and prospective clients sometimes contest consultants’ prescriptions, despite the pervasiveness of risk management as the ultima ratio of organizational governance. This contestation occurs, ironically, because adopting de-risking solutions in one area is perceived by some clients as triggering new risks in areas unforeseen by consultants. This research increases our knowledge of how new risk objects and de-risking solutions come into existence and why some risk management practices fail to be diffused within organizations despite the staggering success of the risk management rationality. We explain the latter through the concepts of frame diffraction and overload.

Notes

1 Actuaries work both internally (e.g. in insurance companies) and externally as advisors in consulting firms.

2 The firm is one of those mentioned although identifying information has been anonymized.

3 For example, employee data concerning their benefits are protected in Canada by the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (2004), which governs the privacy of employee information.

4 Aon Hewitt (2013), for instance, recommends their ‘Dynamic Liability Driven Investments (Dynamic LDI) with Long Credit’ strategy.

5 This shares some similarities with Vinnari and Skærbæk’s (2014) account of how risk management itself produces uncertainty. In their account, uncertainty was produced after the adoption of risk management practices. This is in contrast to our study where clients have not adopted the practice. Uncertainty, or more specific for us, risk, is generated during the consultant–client interaction on whether to adopt or not.

⁶Non-actuary.