Strategies for implementing risk management in Brazilian state governments

Purpose This study explores how public sector risk management (RM) is implemented in 6 Brazilian state governments, given the existence of contextual factors in the settings. Design/methodology/approach The cases were selected following a methodological protocol, resulting in the collection of 12 interviews with government policymakers (GPMs), supplemented with legislation and website content. All collected data were analysed through the qualitative content analysis method under the multi-case study methodology. Findings Empirical evidence shows that the settings strive to operationalise public sector RM by using implementation strategies. These strategies are developed by the GPMs and represent the consequence of the influence of three perceived contextual factors: weak sup-port from some public top managers, a pre-existent innovation-oriented culture, and risk types. Moreover, developing the maturity of RM implementation was observed as being difficult given the weak support from public top managers. Practical implications This study suggests that RM is not always easily implemented in the public context. Therefore, this article provides some tips that help mitigating this problem by involving actions that stimulate a deeper engagement of public top managers and that bring RM to a more strategic place in the governments. Originality/value This article explores RM in the public sector at the government level, demonstrating that strategies can be developed by GPMs to address contextual factors that can make the implementation of RM difficult, as indicated in the study.