Though not working in your area, I have been part of EU project that for the first time introduced risk management into scientific project management (a very big project). There were several problems., most scientists/academic had never encountered this before and could not see the point (until the project was running). Then there were major 'cultural issues' which determined partly how partners reacted to the implementation of the risk management. The differences were north/south ( Europe). I would say that you can't make risk management 'familiar' but you must adapt it to be socially acceptable.for it to be effective. This requires knowing the culture and what the limits are to criticism and feedback. Good luck! I don't think my experience is exactly identical to what you are trying to do (at least you may have one culture only to deal with).

You have the fortune and curse of being a pioneer. When the Internet Domain Space opened up to add new names (.biz, .info, etc) we (I was their attorney) acted like we were constructing real estate improvements. Value and risk management were introduced through the contracting practice. It made sense and the businessmen and politicians accepted the paradigm.

You need a construction lawyer with experience in value engineering and risk management who has proven cross-cultural experience. These happen to be my skills, which is why the United Nations called on me to reform their contracting practices. While I had the solutions they needed, I had to sell the program to a constituency of station heads from all over the world. European men were very scarce. I had to be a citizen of the world.

How to introduce these concepts depends on the culture. If it's a traditional culture, you need to introduce yourself gently and respectfully. Build the relationship first on a basis of respect and the rest will follow. Come in like the answer to problems they don't even recognize and you are foredoomed to failure.

I agreed with the previous contributors. However, introducing risk management, might to be a problem, the problem is with the value management. Value management is often understood by the designers as adversary. Traditionally, VM is a constrain on the designers' liberty. This problem is compounded in the country where the services /roles of quantity surveyors are not provided. If there are QSs in your county, then problems might not arise or could be very low otherwise expect problems. However, I do hope you have embedded RM into VM's framework?

Mohamed, this is the key challenge of implementing risk management. A first step is to identify the urgency for the combination of value and risk management.. Next the key conditions for risk management in the organizational can be assessed, what is the basis of an implementation plan. Final step is to execute the plan in small steps while learning and evaluating the value of each stap. Obviously, the implementation needs to be adapted, if the results point in that direction. Attached is a summary of my PhD thesis about implementing risk management in organizations in the Dutch construction industry.

Education and training is the answer.