Organizational risk perception in public agencies: the role of contracting and scientific and professional information

ABSTRACT

Public agencies are increasingly required to respond to multiple and evolving threats. Perceptions of risk are important triggers of organizational responses and motivate adaptive strategies. Integrating administrative data with a survey of public managers employed across the 300 largest transit agencies in the US, we examine how outsourcing decisions and reliance on scientific and professional sources of information influence public agencies’ perceptions of extreme weather events’ risks. Results show that reliance on scientific and professional sources of information is positively associated with perceived risk of extreme weather events. The effect of contracting on risk perceptions depends on agencies’ outsourcing strategies.

KEYWORDS:

• Extreme weather events
• contracting
• scientific and professional information
• transit agencies
• information processing theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from Eric Welch, upon reasonable request.

Notes

1. https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/president.

2. https://www.transit.dot.gov/ntd/2013-small-systems-waiver-reporting.

3. We have also tested the model measuring transit contracting as percentage of expenditures, obtaining consistent results.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by funding from the Center for Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Studies (C-STEPS) at ASU and through a grant from the US Department of Transportation Federal Transit Administration.