When companies are faced with a person who is behaving in an inappropriately demanding, hostile or threatening manner, some evaluation needs to be undertaken as to the risks to the company or its employees that the case may pose. In some cases, intervention is necessary to avoid matters deteriorating further. In others, the difficult behaviour can safely be ignored.
How can problematic cases be evaluated? Best practice incorporates the use of risk factors identified in peer-reviewed scientific studies to support and act as an aide-mémoire for the assessing risk manager. Up to now, such studies have been largely confined to two sectors: politicians and public officials; and celebrities and those in the talent sector.
But is there any reason to suppose that risk factors identified in such samples are relevant to the corporate sector? It is often lazily assumed that they are likely to be. This paper is the first of two to put such assumptions to the test. It compares a sample of cases from the corporate sector with a sample from the celebrity/talent sector. The second paper will compare the two with a public figure sample.
Specifically, the study looks at risk factors for two undesirable outcomes which underly further forms of risk:
The results show that there is little overlap between the risk factors in the corporate cases and those in the celebrity/talent cases. In other words, risk factors for studies of celebrity/talent cases are of little relevance in corporate cases, and vice versa.
Why should this be so? The results of the study were then analysed according to underlying motivation. The great majority of the corporate cases concerned some form of grievance. Most of the celebrity/talent cases concerned attempts to start amorous relationships. The conclusion is that risk factors for individual cases should be looked at in the context of underlying motivation, not simply of the sector in which the case presents.
