Systemic Risk in Information Systems through a Socio-Technical Lens: A Case Study of Banking Failure in Ireland

Risk management is either non-existent in systems development or done in parallel to other development activities. The financial collapse of 2008/2009 has driven changes in organisational governance and the regulatory environment. In Basel II, the risks from technology are treated on the same grounds, as other factors contributing to financial risk. Fragmented and narrow techno-centric risk frameworks must be replaced with techniques that recognise the socio-technical nature of the problem. New theories around systems risk is an important ask for the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) going forward. This study produces a human centred framework for risk which reflects recommendations from an Irish Parliamentary tribunal. This framework broadens the basis of risk assumptions, rationality, and knowledge reframing risk as a socio-technical issue. The framework synthesises important dimensions which can better inform systemic risk management and thinking from the perspective of systems engineering. This model can be formalised into a semantic web model. Future research will further formalise this model as a machine readable, semantic system using Protégé or another knowledge-based engineering model. The research makes a substantial contribution to our theoretical understanding of systems risk within organisations as well as a methodological contribution that can be used in practice in industry.