Beyond “Positive Risk”: From Antecedents to Effects Conceptual distinction and coordinated management of risks and opportunities in complex management systems

This paper examines the tension within ISO terminology when the general definition of risk as the effect of uncertainty, including positive and negative deviations, is applied in management systems that require organizations to determine and address risks and opportunities. The documentary reconstruction distinguishes the safety tradition of ISO/IEC Guide 51:2014, in which risk combines the probability and severity of harm, from the deliberate broadening introduced by ISO Guide 73:2009 to include positive deviations and potential opportunities. Guide 73, now withdrawn and replaced for current vocabulary purposes by ISO 31073:2022, nevertheless separated sources, events, causes and consequences and allowed risk to be taken in order to pursue an opportunity. ISO 56000:2025 defines opportunity as a prospect afforded by circumstances for realizing value; ISO 14001:2026 distinguishes potential adverse and beneficial effects; ISO/FDIS 9001:2026 retains the inclusive risk definition but separates requirements, actions and forms of thinking and states in Annex A that risks and opportunities are distinct. The FDIS, at ISO stage 60.00 with publication planned for September 2026, is used as near-final technical evidence rather than as a universally applicable published solution [40], [50]. The model starts from the frame of reference and a factual basis of sources, events, causes, conditions, circumstances, resources, capabilities, decisions and changes. Two distinct analytical pathways examine possible adverse effects and favourable possibilities; risks, opportunities and mixed effects then converge in coordinated decisions and realized outcomes. Uncertainty is a cross-cutting epistemic dimension, while complexity is a condition of the system and its interdependencies that may generate complexity-related risk without being identical to it.