Contributions to risk management : On the balance between value creation and protection

The overall objective of this thesis is to contribute to new knowledge in risk management. More concretely, the research relates to one of the main tasks of risk management: to obtain an appropriate balance between value creation on the one hand and protection on the other. Risk management is considered to be all activities and measures carried out to manage the risk. The main purpose is to support the balancing of the conflicts inherent in exploring opportunities, creating values and development, on the one hand, and avoiding losses and accidents on the other. Many of the situations we face, however, involve high risk and uncertainty, making it challenging to predict the outcomes of our decisions and to obtain an appropriate balance between different concerns such as risk and socioeconomic profitability. Various strategies can form the basis for supporting risk management and decision-making under uncertainty, using different tools and approaches. To adequately inform the decision-makers about the risks and uncertainties, we need to make sure that the strategy we apply, and the approaches and principles that follow, are appropriate for the decision-making context and capable of capturing the relevant uncertainties. This is not straightforward, and there is a need to continuously develop the approaches we use to support the decision-makers. At the same time, we need to acknowledge the fact that the tools we use are just tools, with strong limitations. The quality of the produced decision support, then, relates to the quality of the background knowledge, on which the analyses and evaluations are based. To obtain good quality background knowledge, however, is not always straightforward. The thesis contributes to this end by exploring approaches, principles and underlying ways of thinking related to how we can obtain the appropriate balance between value creation and protection, and by producing new knowledge to support that balance in a specific domain. The scientific contribution of the thesis consists of seven papers. The content and contribution of the seven papers are summarised in the following. In risk management, different strategies can be applied to support the tasks. The strategy refers to the underlying way of thinking and the principles that follow. Amongst the principles, ALARP is central. According to the ALARP principle, risks should be reduced to a level that is As Low As Reasonably Practicable, meaning that risk-reducing measures should be i