Risk is a risky word. Already prone to misinterpretation among people who share a language and a culture, the difficulties multiply dangerously when it moves across borders.
What a Wall Street trader might define as moderately risky may seem downright insane to a Japanese retail broker; what an oil pipeline engineer in Brazil might characterise as gung-ho may appear overcautious to his revenue-chasing chief executive in London.
“The perception of risk and uncertainty is very different across cultures,” says Javier Gimeno, a professor of international risk and strategic management at Insead. “In some cultures, there is a very high level of uncertainty avoidance. People avoid discussing things where there is uncertainty, or imitate their competitors just to feel the safety of doing the same thing.” In some Mediterranean and Arabic cultures, he has observed a “strong sense of fatalism or destiny. You don’t want to talk about possible scenarios and possible risks. No one wants to be the person bringing up the risk, which makes the communication of risks difficult.”