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Top1. Introduction
The management of risk is an integral part of the project management process and project failure remains an area of considerable concern in contemporary project management literature (McClure, 2007). Comprehensive risk management increases the probability of project success, and recent empirical studies show a significant positive relationship between project risk management and project outcomes (Jen, 2009). Risk management has become a significant element of some of the most widely deployed industry standard methodologies, yet there is no universally agreed method for managing risk; and, in part because of this, there have been some attempts to suggest more flexible and creative approaches to risk management (Bollinger, 2010).
Project risk management is a fundamental discipline in most industry sectors and can be defined as the process that dynamically minimizes risk levels by identifying and ranking potential risk events, developing a response plan, and actively monitoring risk during project execution (Zwikael & Ahn, 2011). It has implications for the effectiveness of the project management process itself, and for the management and communication of knowledge that is an inherent part of that process. Several organizations have developed industry specific formal policies and supportive analytical tools. Application of integrated risk management methods can support early risk identification and assessment, thereby improving project outcomes and avoiding delays and cost overruns (Zayed, Amer, & Pan, 2008).
Practitioners and researchers agree on the potential of risk management concepts and methods to improve the likelihood of project success in practice (Bannerman, 2008; Aloini, Dulmin, & Mininno, 2012; Martínez Lamas, Quintas Ferrín, & Pardo Froján, 2012). This research focuses on the development of a new maturity model for the assessment, monitoring and management of project risk capability in the automotive industry, specifically in a European context. The maturity concept first appeared in business and management literature in the 1980s and has become a mainstream concept for assessing organizational capability, and is thus appropriate for the study of risk management in a corporate setting. The following section explores relevant literature in this field, followed by a detailed explanation of the research methodology employed, and how the initial model was developed. It also then discusses how data from the in-depth interviews was analyzed, and how the initial maturity model was verified. Section 4 applies the model to one in-company project as an illustration of how the model can be used, in a manner that can be built upon by other researchers and practitioners. The final section draws together key themes covered in the article and assesses the contribution to research and practice.