Maturity of Risk-Based Thinking in Organizations

The requirement to use a risk-based thinking in organizations appeared with so-called high level structure used to develop international standards. Many organizations have introduced basic principles related to the identification of risks and opportunities resulting from the application of a risk-based thinking approach. However, risk-based thinking may be used in various ways and the complexity of methods and applications depends on the organizational context, including the internal environment, maturity of processes and maturity of management system as a whole.

The aim of this paper is to determine if implemented management systems such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001 or ISO 45001 have any influence on risk-based thinking in organizations and to assess the level of maturity of risk-based thinking in organizations. An analysis was carried out on the group of 123 organizations, operating in Poland among which 73 have implemented management system and 50 do not. Results of the study indicates a certain disproportion in the maturity of risk-based thinking between the two surveyed groups.