| Despite the global presence of numerous continuing education institutions, it is clear some educational leaders do not yet understand or manage risk. The purpose of this study was to understand and describe the relationship, if any, between risk management and continuing education planning. Hence, the study examined the meaning of risk in the form of many variables to understand and perhaps guide future decision-making for continuing educators during planning. Literature specifically addressing risk management in continuing education was extremely limited. Accordingly, the recent literature in 12 related professional fields was used to build the rationale for the problem. Structuralism foundationally underpinned this study with pragmatism serving as the overarching philosophy. A qualitative content analysis was thus completed using 151 peer-reviewed risk management articles mined from the International Council on System Engineering library ranging over a 15-year publishing period. Generally, the findings infer continuing educators need a process for developing approaches to risk management during planning. Specifically, the findings epistemologically suggest (a) the best way for continuing educators to avoid risk is to plan well, (b) the cause or consequence of risk in continuing education planning can be controlled, (c) transfer can be used to reduce risk in continuing education by moving a risk from one area to another where the outcome is less risky, and (d) continuing educators must simply accept the fact that risk will always be present at some level during academic planning activities. Accordingly, two recommendations emerged from the study. First and foremost, continuing educators must understand and embrace risk. Secondly, established and proven risk management techniques should be synthesized as a best practice within continuing education planning processes. |
