Enterprise Risk Management: Review, Critique, and Research Directions

© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. Many regulators, rating agencies, executives and academics have advocated a new approach to risk management: Enterprise Risk Management (ERM). ERM proposes the integrated management of all the risks an organization faces, which inherently requires alignment of risk management with corporate governance and strategy. Academic research on ERM is still in its infancy, with articles largely in accounting and finance journals but rarely in management journals. We argue that ERM offers an important new research domain for management scholars. A critical review of ERM research allows us to identify limitations and gaps that management scholars are best equipped to address. This paper not only identifies how management scholars can contribute to ERM research, but also points out why ERM research (and practice) needs management research for its development

Recognizing Risk in Human Capital Investments: A Real Options Approach to Strategic Human Resource Management

An issue that has not yet been explored in the field of strategic human resource management (SHRM) is that of managing the ‘risks’ involved in human capital management of the firm. We address this issue using the real option theory framework. We argue that certain HR practices manage risk and generate opportunities for the firm by creating \u27options\u27 for its human capital management. These HR options help ensure stability of returns from human capital and thus sustain competitive advantage. Different types of HR options and the role of certain HR practices in creation of these options are discussed

Process capability assessments in small development firms

[Abstract}: Assessment-based Software Process Improvement (SPI) programs such as the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), Bootstrap, and SPICE (ISO/IEC 15504) are based on formal frameworks and promote the use of systematic processes and management practices for software development. These approaches identify best practices for the management of software development and when applied, enable organizations to understand, control and improve development processes. The purpose of a SPI assessment is to compare the current processes used in an organization with a list of recommended or ‘best’ practices. This research investigates the adoption of SPI initiatives by four small software development firms. These four firms participated in a process improvement program which was sponsored by Software Engineering Australia (SEA) (Queensland). The assessment method was based on SPICE (ISO/IEC 15504) and included an initial assessment, recommendations, and a follow-up meeting. For each firm, before and after snapshots are provided of the capability as assessed on eight processes. The discussion which follows summarizes the improvements realized and considers the critical success factors relating to SPI adoption for small firms

The Performance Implications of Fit Among Environment, Strategy, Structure, Control System and Social Performance

Purpose – The paper examined concept of corporate performance. The paper seeks to examine the impact of corporate social performance on the relationship among business environment, strategy, organization, and control system and corporate performance. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a synthesis of the existing literatures in strategic management and accounting filed. Findings – The paper finds that corporate social performance defined as stakeholder relationship become one important dimension of the strategic behaviors that an organization can set to improve corporate performance. Research implication – the contextual variables as discussed in strategic management and accounting domain will be contingent upon strategic behaviors, which are behaviors of members in an organization. Originality/value – The paper integrates the contextual variables including business environment, strategy, organization structure, and control system with corporate performance by using corporate social performance as moderating variable by means of a recent literatures study from strategic management and accounting field. Keywords Contextual variable, strategic behavior, corporate social performance, corporate performanc

Relationship between Market Orientation,Firm Innovativeness and Innovative Performance

The paper examines the issue of interrelationships between market orientation, firm innovativeness and innovative performance. Three dimensions of market orientation, namely collection and use of market information, development of market oriented strategy and implementation of market oriented strategy are measured. Factor analysis used to validate the measures of market orientation, firm innovativeness and innovative performance . A correlational analysis is performed to determined whether market orientation is associated with firm innovativeness and innovative performanc

The Role of Boards in Reviewing Information Technology Governance (ITG) as Part of Organizational Control Environment Assessments

IT Governance (ITG) is an important topic as US companies must now monitor ITG under the provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (2002) (Hoffmann, 2003). Trites (2003) indicates that directors are responsible for strategic planning, internal control structures and business risk. The control environment is defined in Australian Auditing Standard AUS 402 to mean "the overall attitude, awareness and actions of management regarding internal control and its importance to the entity". This paper contributes to the knowledge of ITG by forming an integrated ITG Literature (IIL) which links prior research to four key dimensions of ITG. The paper presents a review of literature on ITG performance measurement systems which assess the ability of organizations to achieve these four ITG dimensions. A revised ITG Dimensions Model offered for consideration. The final contribution of the paper is to propose critical issues Boards should consider as part of their assessment of organizational control environments

Intangibles, Global Networks & Corporate Social Responsibility

Network organisations emphasise the importance of corporate and product intangible assets. In global competition, the managerial economics of intangibles imposes new network policies of corporate social responsibility, dominated by global social issues such as economic sustainability, eco-responsibility, worker protection and so on.Intangible Assets; Network; Global Competition; Corporate Social Responsibility DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.4468/2010.2.02brondoni

The Growing Importance of Risk in Financial Regulation

This paper traces the developments that have contributed to the importance of risk in regulation. Not only does it consider theories associated with risk, it also discusses explanations as to why risk has become so important within regulatory and governmental circles. Two forms of risk regulation, namely risk based regulation and meta regulation are considered. As well as considering the application of both in jurisdictions such as the UK, the paper places greater focus in discussing the importance of meta regulation in jurisdictions such as Germany, Italy and the US. The preference for meta regulation is based on the premises, not only of the advantages considered in this paper but also on the application of Basel 11 in several jurisdictions. Whilst meta regulation also has its disadvantages, the impact of risk based regulation on the use of external auditors plays a part in the preference for meta regulation

The intellectual capital - environmental practices, performance and their relationships in the Romanian banking sector

Purpose – This paper reviews the knowledge assets that can be capitalized for successful Green Supply Chain Management (GSCM) implementation in the Romanian banking industry. GSCM is defined as the company’s ability to understand and manage the environmental risks along the Supply Chain (SC) (Carter and Rogers,2008). Banks are very much members of the SCs (McKenzie and Wolfe, 2004), called to integrate the environmental management into both operational and core commercial activities and to manage the environmental risk in their supply chain (FORGE Group,2000; International Finance Corporation, 2006; UNEP Finance Initiative, 2009a). Intellectual capital, or the ‘stock’ of knowledge-based equity firms hold, is recognized as a key contributor to their competitiveness (Bontis et al., 1999), which may act as a driver of environmental pro-activeness (Bernauer et al., 2006; Wu et al., 2007), as well as an obstacle in the process to design and implement GSCM (Post and Altman, 1994; Baresel-Bofinger et al., 2007), while organizational learning is seen as the key component in overcoming the organizational obstacles to environmental changes (Post and Altman, 1992; Post and Altman, 1994; Anderson and Wolff, 1996). Design/methodology/approach – This research paper describes the empirical results of a cross-sectional design employed in a sample of 41 banks operating in Romania with the purpose a. to explore the stage of designing and implementing GSCM practices in the Romanian banking sector; b. to determine which GSCM practices tend to be followed the most, c. which are the bank managers’ perceived benefits from implementing GSCM practices, as well as perceived obstacles in GSCM implementation in the banking sector; and d. what is the relationship between the aforementioned variables. For these purposes several statistical analyses were used, including both descriptive and inferential statistics. Originality/value – This is the first study looking for GSCM issues in the Romanian banking industry. The results of this research provide insights into what extent knowledge assets could be capitalized for successful Green Supply Chain Management implementation in the Romanian banking industry. Furthermore, it is increasing the ecological awareness, the theoretical and managerial insights for an effective implementation of GSCM practices in the banking sector. The analysis reveals that GSCM practices (especially practices in the immaterial flow) are strongly and significantly correlated with perceived benefits and pressures. However,this should be addressed in future research because the present study offers only correlational data and cannot establish causation. The study also concludes that bank’s size and foreign/Romanian ownership do not influence at all the level of GSCM practices implementation and related perceptions (pressures, obstacles,benefits) in the Romanian banking sector. Practical implications – The findings of this paper point to the conclusion that the banking sector in Romania is at a somehow advanced stage of ecological adaptation in the physical flow and at an early stage in the immaterial and commercial flows. Based on the literature and study’s findings, regarding the role that the management of intellectual capital and knowledge flow plays, several recommendations are proposed for enhancing the implementation process of GSCM practices in the banking industry in Romania

Environmental Dynamic, Business Strategy, and Financial Performance: an Empirical Study of Indonesian Property and Real Estate Industry

Firm’s strategic orientation involves synchronizing environmental dynamics, corporate strategy and capital structure in order to achieve firm performance targets. The co-alignment model used successfully in the hospitality industry might be used in a wider context as a framework in explaining these relationships simultaneously. Using the data of public firms in Indonesia during the period of 1996-2010, we found that co-alignment model can be implemented in property and real estate industry as well as in hospitality industry