Risk-taking in Academic Libraries: The Implications of Prospect Theory

Abstract

Risk is a fundamental characteristic of the landscape of academic libraries, and has typically been seen in the context of strategic planning. However as the pace of technological change increases rapidly each year, and the financial and organizational pressure for demonstrating library value to our community grows apace, it is important to reassess our attitudes to risk. The future of our libraries is at play. Prospect Theory is an influential and ground-breaking model from the field of Economics that helps us to better understand how people make decisions under risk. Applying the basic principles of Prospect Theory to academic libraries can help us reframe our approach to risk assessment and to understand our actions from a different perspective. This paper describes the dynamics of risk in academic libraries and contextualizes these dynamics in relation to this model.

The influence of the reward culture on client-led service innovation in academic libraries of Uganda

“…Joint (2007) aver that, because of the conservative nature of work processes in the library environment, risk is considered low. However, high levels of risk are emerging from the environment that surrounds libraries, which is beleaguered by a technological onslaught (Casserly, 2004;Maidabino and Zainab, 2011;Sas et al, 2021), financial risks, socio-cultural risks, and political risks (Horava, 2014;Kuzucuo glu, 2014). The researchers suspect that the conservative nature of libraries, as mentioned by Joint (2007) could be the reason some academic libraries are not engaged in innovation or take a long time to adopt innovations.…”