(John Wiley & Sons Inc.: Hoboken, NJ) -- We all face risks in a variety of ways, as individuals, businesses, and societies. The discipline of risk assessment and risk management is growing rapidly, and there is an enormous drive for the implementation of risk assessment methods and risk management in organizations. There are great expectations that these tools provide suitable frameworks for obtaining high levels of performance and balance different concerns such as safety and costs.

The analysis and management of risk are not straightforward. There are many challenges. The risk discipline is young and there are a number of ideas, perspectives and conceptions of risk out there. For example, many analysts and researchers consider it appropriate to base their risk management policies on the use of expected values, which basically means that potential losses are multiplied with their associated consequences. However, the rationale for such a policy is questionable.

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