A Work-Systems Approach to Classifying Risks in Crowdfunding Platforms: An Exploratory Analysis

Crowdfunding has attracted much attention in the last few years because it has opened up new pathways for projects to obtain financing from individuals who are non-professional investors via the Internet. While risk occupies a central role in crowdfunding, this notion has been an unexplored area in the information systems literature. To close this gap, we contribute to the literature by identifying the main risks in crowdfunding platforms. Using the Work Systems Risk Framework, we analyze main risks in three equity crowdfunding platforms: Crowdfunder, AngelList and Seedrs. Our findings indicate that operational risk, project management risk, cognitive skill risk, IP risk, quality risk, legal risk and vendor relationship risk factors to be important to crowdfunding platforms. Findings from this study are relevant to platform owners and regulators in assessing the risks of crowdfunding platforms

Legal issues in clouds: towards a risk inventory.

Cloud computing technologies have reached a high level of development, yet a number of obstacles still exist that must be overcome before widespread commercial adoption can become a reality. In a cloud environment, end users requesting services and cloud providers negotiate service-level agreements (SLAs) that provide explicit statements of all expectations and obligations of the participants. If cloud computing is to experience widespread commercial adoption, then incorporating risk assessment techniques is essential during SLA negotiation and service operation. This article focuses on the legal issues surrounding risk assessment in cloud computing. Specifically, it analyses risk regarding data protection and security, and presents the requirements of an inherent risk inventory. The usefulness of such a risk inventory is described in the context of the OPTIMIS project

Formalised approach to the management of risk

Taking a pragmatic, systems engineering approach, this thesis identifies a number of fundamental issues that presently arise in risk management, primarily as a result of the overly complex and somewhat outdated approach conventionally taken in process definition and a lack of coherence within the current risk management vocabulary. It is suggested that many recent developments in systems engineering have largely been ignored by the risk management community. The objective of this work is to develop a formalised approach to the management of risk using a model based approach this will enable a fundamental simplification of the risk management process, resulting - amongst other things - in an improved understanding of the associated terminology. An object oriented modelling approach, now widely exploited in systems engineering, has been used to provide an insight into many existing risk management standards considering the approaches they present and terminology used. It has also been used to derive both a set of processes for risk management and a methodology for implementation. Alongside this, a consistent, inter-related terminology as been proposed for use with these processes. The outcome of this work is a formalised but pragmatic approach to risk management including the definition of processes, ontology for risk management and a pragmatic methodology for the application of the processes. This approach has been validated in a number of case studies of varying depth and breadth, covering health & safety, business, project and individual needs, showing that the proposed processes and terminology can be used effectively in different organisations and industries.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

A formalised approach to the management of risk

Taking a pragmatic, systems engineering approach, this thesis identifies a number of fundamental issues that presently arise in risk management, primarily as a result of the overly complex and somewhat outdated approach conventionally taken in process definition and a lack of coherence within the current risk management vocabulary. It is suggested that many recent developments in systems engineering have largely been ignored by the risk management community. The objective of this work is to develop a formalised approach to the management of risk using a model based approach this will enable a fundamental simplification of the risk management process, resulting - amongst other things - in an improved understanding of the associated terminology. An object oriented modelling approach, now widely exploited in systems engineering, has been used to provide an insight into many existing risk management standards considering the approaches they present and terminology used. It has also been used to derive both a set of processes for risk management and a methodology for implementation. Alongside this, a consistent, inter-related terminology as been proposed for use with these processes. The outcome of this work is a formalised but pragmatic approach to risk management including the definition of processes, ontology for risk management and a pragmatic methodology for the application of the processes. This approach has been validated in a number of case studies of varying depth and breadth, covering health & safety, business, project and individual needs, showing that the proposed processes and terminology can be used effectively in different organisations and industries