Understanding Culture: Culture is the way of life, how things are done in an environment or an organisation. The shared believes and values followed by people in an organisation. Example the dress code in an organisation becomes a culture, the way people dress in a professional and respectful way. Not revealing too much skin or torn jeans in a working environment.
“Culture is a collective programme of the mind which distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another. ‘’ (Hofstede, 1980).
Risk culture: According to (Cindy Levy, February 10) it’s a system of values and behaviours that are visible in the organisation that shares risk decisions of management and employees. One benefit of risk culture is a common understanding of an organisation and its business.
Risk culture is also the values, beliefs, knowledge and understanding about risk shared by a group of people with a common purpose.
The most important way in which risk culture matters is that it has a critical effect on risk management effectiveness (Hillson, 2002d) as the IRM points out. ‘’ The prevailing risk culture within an organisation can make it significantly better or worse at managing risk’’ (Institute of Risk Mnagement, 2012b) at both organisational level and lower levels (such as divisional or project level).
Developing and maintaining a strong positive risk culture is important for several reason, including its influence on compliance, organisational performance, and risk management