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The aim of this chapter is to examine and problematize the taken-for-granted conceptual understanding of risk practices in sport cultures. By inspecting the mainstay, and one might argue relatively stagnant, constructions of risk in the sociological study of sport, a case for attending to a wider range of risk-based ideologies and cultural practices is presented. The chapter ventures away from viewing risk as predominantly physical in sport settings and constructing athletes as oppressed agents who naively acquiesce to practices of self-injury and self-alienation in sport cultures. Emphasis is given to a broad spectrum of risks undertaken in the practice of sport, and the reflexive, personal nature by which risk may be understood by sports and physical culture participants.

In the first part of the chapter, the relatively simplistic or unidimensional construction of risk in sociological research in sport is reviewed. In the second part, the complexity of the concept of risk is then discussed alongside case examples that push the analytical boundaries of how risk is a multidimensional construct of athletes’ minds, bodies, selves, beliefs, values, and identities in a host of relational contexts.

Risk is best understood as a set of practices and belief that exists on a continuum in sport and physical cultures. Risk-taking in sport, however, can be personally injurious and detrimental along a number of lines but is also often calculated, personally/group satisfying and existentially rewarding at times. If the concept of risk is to be applied and interrogated in sport and physical cultures, it should be done so, therefore, in radically contextual manners.

This chapter illustrates the need for new and exploratory theoretical understandings of what risk means to athletes and other participants in sport and physical culture. New substantive topics are proposed, as are methodological suggestions for representations of the unfolding risk in the process of “doing” sport.

One of the most familiar nostrums of the public management reform literature is that public managers must be risk takers (e.g. Gore, 1993). As is so often the case with prescriptions for public management reform, there is much more advice about risk-taking, its merits and demerits, than there is research on its the incidence, causes and effects of public management risk-taking. Only a handful of studies have actually provided systematic evidence about public agencies’ risk-taking (e.g. Bellante & Link, 1981; Berman & West, 1998; Bozeman & Kingsley, 1998) and some of these studies point to the complexities of conceptualizing and measuring public management risk.

In the past decade, firms have become more aware of supply chain disruptions and their impact on the firm. Developing a supply chain resilience organizational culture has been proposed as an effective way to manage supply chain risks. This study intends to explore how the geographical location risks impact the decision to develop a supply chain resilience strategy, in particular, to anticipate the disruption proactively and have a business continuity plan in place. Using a unique database including thousands of manufacturing locations that belong to over 7,000 firms across 102 countries, we test three hypotheses to understand if geographical location risks, frequency of disruptive events, and the region in which a site is located are factors for the likelihood of a firm having a business continuity plan at their locations. The study also seeks to understand if there are regional effects and firm effects affecting the decision to develop resilience. With a particular focus in Latin America and the firms with a manufacturing presence in that region. The main findings of the study are that natural disaster risks do tend to develop a culture of resilience, while macroeconomic risks tend to do the opposite. These results remain stable for firms' effects. The Latin America region shows no observable statistical difference in developing resilience compared to the Asia region. While the Northern America region shows more resilience compared to Asia. We conclude that economic risk is less predictable and harder to develop a plan for than disruptions, such as natural disasters. The findings of this study present an opportunity for governments to develop resilience plans that can make their countries more attractive for investment to multinational firms looking to establish new manufacturing locations around the world.

This chapter is part of a research project examining the role of culture and culture differences in foreign partnerships. We build on prior research on culture distance to explore the influence of perceptions of cultural differences on perceived relational risk. Perceived relational risk is defined here as the degree of satisfaction of being involved in business activities with nationals of a given country. Contrary to expectations, our analysis suggests that cultural differences are sometimes perceived as a desirable characteristic and may be associated with lower relational risk. We speculate that culture distance is an asymmetric construct in which the perception of a cultural difference may be interpreted as positive or negative depending on the perspective from which the reading is made and the nature of the task in which the perception is formed.

Purpose – This article examines management accounting practice in relation to the two aspects of Enterprise Risk Management (ERM): risk management and internal controls.

Methodology/Approach – We conducted a survey of experienced management accountants to find out about the risk management and internal control aspects of their current ERM practices, and their perceived effectiveness in performing various ERM roles, within the context of the ERM culture and the level of information systems support for ERM in their organizations.

Findings – In terms of the risk management aspects of ERM, the management accountants in the survey contribute highly to managing risks of a financial or compliance/legal nature and tend to focus mostly on risks with potentially higher impact and higher likelihood of occurring. In terms of the internal control aspects of ERM, they play a highly important role in ERM activities related to prevention and internal risk treatment. Their organizations have an ERM culture that is perceived as open to challenging discussions about risk and have implemented IS support for management accounting in areas such as information security and standardized information architecture. Overall, the effectiveness of their contributions to ERM is perceived to be high in the areas of compliance and finance-related risk.

Originality/Value – We develop a framework and offer empirical evidence about the ERM contributions of management accountants. We propose and use two original scales: one to classify ERM activities, and the other to assess ERM culture.

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the relationship between ethics, risks of compliance failure and strategic value of global responsibility for BRICS companies. The first part of the chapter adopts a theoretical approach: it introduces and analyzes the key role of compliance risk management for sustainable and successful development of companies. The second part of the chapter uses an empirical approach, based on the case study method. The chapter focuses on the BRICS. The chapter demonstrates that mere formal compliance with laws, recommendations, and internal codes is not sufficient for companies that want to be responsible and attract stakeholders’ consent and resources. A shared background of ethical principles is required for a proper understanding of the rules, in order to prevent the risk of compliance failure and limit the global risk exposure of a company. Due to the business perspective adopted in the research, this chapter leaves out the sociological aspects regarding how to create, spread, and strengthen the culture of compliance within a company. The chapter encourages companies to connect ethical principles and compliance with the rules. Indeed, a lack of ethics in business operations, obscured by formal compliance, often results in indirect negative impacts on stakeholder relationships, so it is only a futile attempt to act responsibly. The originality of the chapter consists in suggesting the adoption of a responsibility-oriented approach for compliance risk management.

The hefty fines levied on credit institutions in recent years for cases of misconduct, including poor behavioural standards, operational control deficiencies and regulatory breaches more broadly, has been defined by regulatory authorities and the financial sector more broadly as ‘conduct risk’. There is no official definition of conduct risk, as conduct risk profiles are unique to each firm and, therefore, there can never be a one-size-fits-all framework in place. Conceptually, conduct risk is a broad notion that touches every part of an enterprise framework, including culture, customer contact, corporate governance, ethics and integrity, conflicts of interest and compliance, amongst others. As a result, credit institutions tend to associate conduct risk with regulatory censure, financial detriment, poor customer outcomes, and, importantly, reputational damage. In light of the significant consequences of misconduct, recent regulatory measures have sought to specifically target these drivers. In this chapter the author discussed the regulatory spotlight on conduct risk, which continues to top the regulators’ agenda in view of its seriousness and considered the role of the board in managing conduct risk, whilst elaborating on the importance of board evaluations in this respect.

Cultural differences are often important motivators for tourism, but they may also be associated with increased risk perceptions. Different cultures may also perceive risk differently. Despite the importance of this topic for tourism research, few studies have aimed to systematize literature on cultural differences, tourism and risk. Therefore, the main goal of the present chapter is to elaborate a bibliometric analysis of this literature, more specifically, to quantify its sources and clusters of co-citation and terms. To achieve this goal, the publications indexed in Web of Science with the terms cultural differences and tourism (242) are analysed using VOSviewer. A qualitative analysis of the studies which focus specifically on risk is also performed.

Purpose – Since risk management is crucial for achieving strategic objectives in a complex and uncertain environment and its effectiveness relies deeply on efforts to create a risk-conscious culture, this study aims at understanding whether risk management can be promoted and reinforced by the use of performance-based monetary incentives given to Board members and top managers.

Methodology/approach – This study is explorative in nature and investigates four case studies based on document analysis and semi-structured interviews with risk managers.

Findings – Results show that some companies have already adopted risk measures in incentive schemes. At the same time all interviewees agree with the usefulness of linking traditional performance-based monetary incentives to risk management objectives in order to improve the effectiveness of the latter and to create a risk-aware culture. However, the difficulty in identifying proper measures has been underlined.

Practical implications – The study confirms the feasibility of linking risk dimensions to reward systems and suggests that firms should move in this direction. The study also outlines and proposes some possible measures to reward managers.

Limitations – This study views risk as measurable and managerially actionable and focuses only on incentives while acknowledging the use of other mechanisms that can contribute to the creation of an informed risk culture. Furthermore, the integration of risk management with other management control systems and accounting instruments has not been analyzed.

Value of the paper – This study addresses firms and their stakeholders’ need to make top managers more accountable for risk in their decision-making.