As in the private sector, risk management has gained also increasing popularity by public entities. Nonetheless, the correct implementation of risk management by public entities might be a difficult task to accomplish. The Dutch case is an interesting example, since municipalities in the Netherlands have a special bylaw for risk management. However as innovative as it might seems for the public context, there would be some evidence of the difficulties that municipalities in the Netherlands have faced in the implementation of risk management practices (Boorsma and Haisma, 2005). Although there would be no accepted methodologies for impartially measure management practices across different industries, we consider that maturity models could contribute on the task of assessing the implementation of risk management practices. However taking to account the fundamental and practical difficulties found in current risk maturity models, we have made significant efforts to explain and also adapt this method to the characteristics of these entities. Accordingly, we state that Organizational Change and Organizational Learning theory would assist us on the explanation of the evolutionary logic assumed by risk maturity models. When applying the improved risk maturity model to a sample of municipalities in the Netherlands, we found interesting findings and empirical support for the construct validity of our proposed model. Although we still considered this risk maturity model a developing method that needs additional enhancements, we strongly believe that it could be a pertinent instrument for the assessment of risk management process in Dutch municipalities, influencing also the implementation of best risk management practices by these organizations. On the other hand, our principal scientific contribution has been to study and interpret the logic of risk maturity models, identifying theories that could explain their reasoning. We have also incorporated in our model the different stages of the risk management cycle as the main forces for this evolutionary learning process. As a result, we believe that we have fulfilled the gaps found in the literature, making a relevant contribution to the field.
