Understanding Public Sector Risk Management in Contexts of Hybridity: A Structured Literature Review

As risk management (RM) becomes more prevalent and public sector reforms increasingly blur the lines between the public and private spheres, understanding RM in these potentially hybridized settings becomes ever more critical. Building on the four dimensions of hybridity proposed by Denis et al.—namely, governance structures, agency and practice, roles and identities, and institutional dynamics—we conduct a structured literature review (SLR) to understand how accounting literature on RM portrays its evolution and functioning within these hybridity dimensions of the public sector. In distinguishing between hybridity as a “static” state (the hybrid) and as a “dynamic” process (hybridization), each of the dimensions investigated provides a robust foundation for identifying theoretically sound future research avenues. Our findings show that although RM has been widely studied—above all, in relation to hybrid governance structures—there remains a need for further in-depth investigation into the implications of other dimensions of hybridity on RM. By offering a context-sensitive perspective on RM, this SLR therefore supports researchers in better capturing the essence of RM in their future research endeavors.