IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v20y2000i5p681-690.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Risk Perception in the U.K. Oil and Gas Production Industry: Are Expert Loss‐Prevention Managers' Perceptions Different From Those of Members of the Public?

Author

Listed:
  • George Wright
  • Alan Pearman
  • Keith Yardley

Abstract

This article investigates potential differences in risk perception between experts (loss‐prevention managers in the U.K. oil and gas production industry) and nonexperts (managers and students). Extant research on expert versus nonexpert perceptions of risk is reviewed, followed by the present study concerning risk perceptions of seven pen‐picture scenarios involving the occurrence of hazardous events in the U.K. oil and gas production industry. In contrast to many of the earlier studies of expert versus nonexpert perceptions of risk, the present analysis concludes that experts did not judge the overall riskiness of the portrayed hazardous events as less risky than the nonexperts. Nevertheless, the experts believe more strongly than our nonexperts that the risks portrayed in the scenarios pose little threat to future generations, are more precisely known, and are relatively controllable. Use of multiple regression analysis to help uncover the basis of overall riskiness assessments for expert and lay respondents was inconclusive, however. Finally, little evidence was found that nonexperts were any more heterogeneous in their risk perceptions than experts. It may be that the nature of the risks assessed in the present study may account for the general lack of clear expert versus nonexpert differences in overall perceptions of the riskiness of hazardous events in the North Sea. Earlier findings of strong expert versus nonexpert differences in risk perception assessed hazards of major public concern. It is inferred that using such extreme hazards may have resulted in an exaggerated view of differences in expert versus public (nonexpert) perception of risk.

Suggested Citation

  • George Wright & Alan Pearman & Keith Yardley, 2000. "Risk Perception in the U.K. Oil and Gas Production Industry: Are Expert Loss‐Prevention Managers' Perceptions Different From Those of Members of the Public?," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 20(5), pages 681-690, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:20:y:2000:i:5:p:681-690
    DOI: 10.1111/0272-4332.205061
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/0272-4332.205061
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/0272-4332.205061?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mary E. Thomson & Dilek Önkal & Ali Avcioğlu & Paul Goodwin, 2004. "Aviation Risk Perception: A Comparison Between Experts and Novices," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(6), pages 1585-1595, December.
    2. Lucia Savadori & Stefania Savio & Eraldo Nicotra & Rino Rumiati & Melissa Finucane & Paul Slovic, 2004. "Expert and Public Perception of Risk from Biotechnology," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(5), pages 1289-1299, October.
    3. Julie Olivero, 2010. "De la perception du risque de l’entreprise à sa représentation, et impact sur la gestion des risques industrialo-environnementaux (RIE) : proposition d’un modèle qualitatif à variables conceptuelles," Working Papers hal-02274965, HAL.
    4. Stacey M. Conchie & Ian J. Donald & Paul J. Taylor, 2006. "Trust: Missing Piece(s) in the Safety Puzzle," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 26(5), pages 1097-1104, October.
    5. George Wright & Fergus Bolger & Gene Rowe, 2002. "An Empirical Test of the Relative Validity of Expert and Lay Judgments of Risk," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 22(6), pages 1107-1122, December.
    6. McCarthy, Mary & Brennan, Mary, 2009. "Food risk communication: Some of the problems and issues faced by communicators on the Island of Ireland (IOI)," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 549-556, December.
    7. Emma Soane & Iljana Schubert & Simon Pollard & Sophie Rocks & Edgar Black, 2016. "Confluence and Contours: Reflexive Management of Environmental Risk," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(6), pages 1090-1107, June.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:20:y:2000:i:5:p:681-690. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.