Risk Analysis: Exploration
The historical origins of decision analysis can
be partially traced to mathematical studies of prob-abilities in the 17
th
and 18
th
centuries by Pascal,
Laplace, and Bernoulli. However, the applications
of these concepts in business and general man-agement appeared only after the Second World
War (Covello and Mumpower, 1985; Bernstein,
1996). The problem involving decision-making
when there are conditions of risk and uncertainty
has been notorious since the beginnings of the
oil industry. Early attempts to define risk were
informal.
The s