An initial design validation framework for cooperative risk management in seaports

Recent disruptions in supply chains, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have highlighted the importance of cross-organisational risk management for avoiding or mitigating the impacts of operational risks such as supply bottlenecks and demand shocks. Earlier work has presented the CoRiMaS risk management model for seaports, in which stakeholder analysis, risk governance, strategic and tactical risk management, and knowledge management are the key aspects. Considering the lack of validation approaches for cooperative risk management in the general risk literature, and a fortiori in the maritime domain, this article proposes an initial validation framework to test the design of the CoRiMaS risk management model for seaports. Apart from introducing the conceptual basis and practical steps of this validation framework, it is applied to an illustrative case study to clarify its concepts, and to guide further testing and research. The presented case study includes specific scenarios that were discussed with stakeholders in Germany and Finland. The developed framework can be used and expanded to validate the design of similar cooperative risk management models. The results of the illustrative test case based on the initial design validation framework support the development of a theoretically founded cooperative risk management auditing process.