Incorporating Structural Models into Research on the Social Amplification of Risk: Implications for Theory Construction and Decision Making

A comprehensive approach to managing risk must draw on both the descriptive insights of the behavioral sciences and the prescriptive clarity of the management sciences. On the descriptive side, this study develops structural models to explain how the impact upon society of an accident or other unfortunate event is influenced by the physical consequences of the event, perceived risk, media coverage, and public response. Our findings indicate that the media and public response play crucial roles in determining the impact of an unfortunate event. Public response appears to be determined by perceptions that the event was caused by managerial incompetence and is a signal of future risk. On the prescriptive side, we briefly discuss how these findings based upon structural models can be incorporated into a decision‐analytic procedure known as an influence diagram.