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Abstract Background Energy network companies are commonly attributed the public task to help society in becoming greener in the domain of energy. This extra public task has high costs and comes with high uncertainties. It may also compete with existing public tasks of network companies. When network companies are involved in local green initiatives, they encounter dilemmas and need to arrange trade-offs among multiple public values. It may also compete with existing tasks of network companies. Therefore, these network companies can face dilemmas when involved in local green initiatives. The aim of this paper is to reflect on the role of energy network companies in the face of these dilemmas. What is the role of energy network companies in coping with conflicting public values when helping local initiatives that create a greener energy system? Methods We answer this question via an essay that reflects on existing research in the Dutch energy sector. Our answer is derived from the fields of law, politics, policy, economics and engineering about the role of network companies. Results and discussion We argue that these five perspectives leave the role of energy network companies in the energy transition under-articulated. Our additional answer is based on our own empirical research that focuses on how network companies currently deal with dilemmas between multiple public tasks. Conclusion We provide an analytical framework that enables a way of understanding the role of network companies in the struggle with dilemmas and raise several points of discussion to that might refocus efforts of researchers and practitioners to elucidate the role of network companies.

Recent years have witnessed major governmental initiatives regarding critical infrastructure protection (CIP). During that same time, critical infrastructures (CIs) have undergone massive institutional restructuring under the headings of privatization, deregulation and liberalization. Little research has gone into understanding the interactions between these two developments. In this article, we outline the consequences of institutional restructuring for the changing ways in which CIs ensure the reliability and security of their networks and services. Neither Normal Accident Theory nor High‐Reliability Theory can account for reliability under these conditions. We then investigate the implications of these findings for CIP.

Individuals are regularly made responsible for risks they wish to take: one can consent to processing of personal data, and decide what to buy based on risk information on product labels. However, both large‐scale processing of personal data and aggregated product choices may carry collective risks for society. In such situations, governance arrangements implying individual responsibility are at odds with uncertain collective risks from new technologies. We, therefore, investigate the governance challenges of what we call risk personalization: a form of governance for dealing with uncertain collective risks that allocates responsibility for governing those risks to individuals.We situate risk personalization at the intersection of two trends: governance of uncertain risk, and emphasis on individual responsibility. We then analyze three cases selected based on diversity: social media, nanomaterials, and Uber. Cross‐case comparison highlights issues of risk personalization pertaining to (i) the nature of the risk, (ii) governance arrangements in place, and (iii) mechanisms for allocating responsibility to individuals. We identify governance challenges in terms of (i) meaningful choice, (ii) effectiveness in mitigating risk, and (iii) collective decision making capacity. We conclude that the risk personalization lens stimulates reflection on the effectiveness and legitimacy of risk governance in light of individual agency.

Inside companies that produce significant risks, risk managers play a key role. They manage the connection between the risk regulation regime, which stresses public values, and the company, which pursues a broader array of organisational goals. This makes the role of risk managers ambivalent. To better understand this ambivalence and identify the means, motives and strategies that risk managers employ in response to this ambivalence, this article conducts a concise review of (classic) organisation and regulatory literature. Based on this review, we propose a typology that distinguishes four roles of risk managers: risk managers as supporting staff; risk managers as professionals; risk managers as boundary spanners; and risk managers as agents in regulatory communities. Each type subsequently describes how risk managers employ different strategies in their attempt to connect the risk regulation regime and the company, ie translating policies to practices, tailoring policies to practices, explaining and framing policies and practices, and (re)interpreting policies and practices together with regulators. The typology enables researchers and practioners to emphasise and more thoroughly analyse the variety and complexity of risk managers' work, and can help regulators to broaden and fine-tune their strategies to improve connections with the various roles of risk managers.