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Emphasising the significance of managing environmental and social issues for businesses, the chapter aims at highlighting the need of developing a non-financial risk management system for elevating corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in China. Particularly, through discussing its importance, opportunities, and challenges.

Analysis and discussion of the chapter are based on multiple sources of information. Review of literature includes authoritative academic articles, reports from renowned global organisations, media coverage of corporations, and examples of business cases in China.

Several key findings are covered in the chapter. First of all, environmental and social concerns are usually being deemed as intangible issues that need to be properly articulated and managed by an effective non-financial risk management system for enhancing corporate sustainability in China. Secondly, through different interpretations of sustainability, links could be drawn for non-financial risk management and sustainability. Thirdly, by explaining the impacts from non-financial risk management to sustainable development and profits, the chapter has argued CSR as a clear business case for any company in China. Fourthly, challenges are also portrayed for the effective management of non-financial risk management by corporations. Finally, the need of a well-defined non-financial risk management system for helping businesses to be more competitive, thus, moving closer to sustainability in China and elsewhere is provided.

Integrating environmental and social risks is critical to the effective management of any corporation’s real risks and to improve resource allocation in a sustainable fashion. This demands a systematic and strategic identification of issues through non-financial risk management. Most significantly, this chapter has shown the way this can be achieved by any corporation in China, and the concepts can be applied into other societies.

The contribution of the chapter is thought to be significant. Although there exists a wide body of research on sustainable development, risk management and CSR in China, there is limited insight into how corporations can effectively conceptualise such intangible or non-financial risks in relation to sustainability.

This paper aims at highlighting the significance in developing non-financial risk management, emphasizing the need of managing environmental and social issues for enhancing corporate sustainability. Particularly, through discussing the implications of non-financial risk management, its benefits, opportunities and challenges will also be presented.

Drawing on authoritative academic literature, reports of corporations’ studies, current articles and documents, the researcher has managed to examine and construe the development and implications of non-financial risk management.

Several key findings are covered in this article. First of all, environmental and social concerns are usually being deemed as intangible issues that need to be properly articulated and managed by an effective non-financial risk management system for enhancing corporate sustainability. Second, through different interpretations of sustainability, links could be drawn for highlighting the significance of non-financial risk management and corporate sustainability. Third, by explaining the impacts from non-financial risk management to sustainable development and profits, the article has illustrated corporate sustainability as a clear business case for any corporation. Fourth, challenges are also portrayed for the effective management of non-financial risk management by corporations. Finally, and most importantly, the need of a systematic and strategic non-financial risk management system for helping businesses to be more competitive, thus, moving closer to sustainable development, is discussed in this paper.

The contribution of the article is thought to be significant. Although there exists a wide body of research on sustainable development, risk management and corporate sustainability, there is limited insight into how the corporations can effectively conceptualize such intangible or non-financial risk in relation to sustainability. Integrating environmental and social risks is critical to the effective management of any corporation’s real risks, and to improve resources allocation in a sustainable fashion. This demands a systematic and strategic identification of issues through non-financial risk management. Most significantly, this article has shown the way this can be achieved by any corporation, and the concepts can be applied globally.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of voluntary risk management disclosure (VRMD) on firm value (FV).

This study uses content analysis approach to collect the VRMD data. FV is represented by three variables: market capitalization, Tobin’s Q and market to book value of equity ratio. Based on a sample of 395 firms listed on the main market of Bursa Malaysia in 2011, this study uses multivariate statistical tests to examine the association between VRMD and FV.

Based on the regression analysis, this study found that the VRMD has a positive and significant relationship with FV. Even though the authors hypothesize that damaging voluntary risk management disclosure (DVRMD) will have a negative and significant relationship with FV, the regression analysis shows that the DVRMD is not significantly related to FV. As expected, the relationship between beneficial voluntary risk management disclosure (BVRMD) and FV is positive and significant. The findings provide evidence that should be of interest especially to firms in terms of deciding upon whether to provide or avoid disclosing voluntary risk management information to their stakeholders.

Notwithstanding the critical empirical findings, this study is limited to only focusing on a one year data. The authors acknowledge the fact that findings from a one year data might not be easily generalized to other time periods. The authors believe a stronger argument could be obtained from evidence based on a longitudinal study or data that incorporate multiple economic conditions. The study highlights the fact that risks management information is important to investors in Malaysia when they make their investments decisions.

To date, regulatory bodies emphasize more on financial risk management disclosure through the enforcement of MFRS 7; while non-financial risk information is less emphasized in current guidelines such as Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance (MCCG) (2012) and Recommended Practice Guide 5 (Revised), which only requires firms to disclose information about non-financial risk management without specific details. As this study has provided evidence on the significance of non-financial risk management disclosures in the capital market, this study could be useful for the regulatory bodies to develop more detailed guidelines on non-financial risk management disclosure in the future.

Most of prior literatures are found to focus on the study of factors that influence the VRMD (such as Linsley and Shrives, 2006; Abraham and Cox, 2007; Hassan et al., 2009; Ismail and Abdul Rahman, 2011). Studies about the effects of voluntary risk management information disclosure is however very scant. Miihkinen (2013) studied the effects of risk management disclosure on information asymmetry. This paper adds to Miihkinen (2013) by investigating the relationship between VRMD and FV. This paper is expected to be the first to investigate on the empirical usefulness of VRMD in a developing country.

We investigate the evolution of corporate risk management practices in Slovenian non-financial firms in the period 2004–2009 and compare the findings several surveys conducted for other countries. We mail questionaires to non-financial companies, where the target group included non-financial companies listed on Ljubljana Stock Exchange and the largest exporting companies in Slovenia. We find that the current use of derivatives for hedging purposes is still at a lower level than in the majority of developed countries. The great expansion of Slovenian economy in the period 2004–2008, the development of Slovenian financial system, the convergence of Slovenian and EU accounting standards and recent financial crisis did not sufficiently induce Slovenian firms to adopt risk management practices. The most often stated reasons for the low use of derivatives are (1) insufficient risk exposure, (2) problems with the evaluation and monitoring of derivatives and (3) the costs associated with the implementation of derivatives programme. In our opinion, the institutional environment in Slovenia does not induce managers to undertake proper risk management activities. We argue that not only managers, but also owners and creditors should be more accountable for the decisions they take (or do not take).

Introduction: Enterprise risk management (ERM) is a process that identifies how firms manage risks. In recent years, a growing number of companies in emerging economies have begun to implement a holistic framework for risk management for sustainable development.

Aim: The aim of this chapter is to assess the sustainability risk management based approach to economic, social and governance performance. Analysis will be performed on a sample of Romanian listed companies to assessment the significant risks identified by them. Current study undertakes these important issues and configures ambitious theoretical and empirical research to strengthen the knowledge in this scientific field.

Method: The data used for the companies in the sample included companies listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange in Romania and was taken from the annual reports published by these companies available for the years 2018 and 2019. The sustainability activities were analyzed and an index was calculated for all activities identified in order to assess the risk management.

Findings: Especially the aggregation of risk and the quality of derivation of risk exposure is highly questionable. The number and proportion of risks reported have also changed, although some risks have always been reported frequently. Our results provide support for the recent pressure generated by the COVID-19 pandemics, on firms to adopt more integrated and comprehensive risk management systems.

This paper aims to study the effect of new regulatory requirements on disclosure through a longitudinal study. The empirical setting is offered by the risk reporting in the management commentaries of Italian listed companies. In this setting there is an evolution from a voluntary disclosure environment toward a regulated one, with the gradual introduction of new reporting requirements.

This paper uses the content analysis method to investigate the narrative risk disclosure. Non‐parametric statistics are used to test the hypotheses.

It is found that even when new mandatory disclosure is introduced, managers exploit discretion and do not change their disclosure policy, continuing to withhold relevant information to external users. Before and after the introduction of new regulation, managers' behaviour appears in line with self‐interest to protect themselves from litigation and competitive costs, as well as from possible decreases in the firm's value.

The study provides a longitudinal study, covering changes from a voluntary disclosure environment to a regulated one. The paper provides evidence that the management incentives do not change in the presence of new disclosure regulation.

This paper aims to investigate the attributes and information content of risk reporting in two different institutional and regulatory, namely, Canadian and German, settings during the period surrounding the financial crisis of 2008.

For a matched sample of manufacturing firms in the period 2006–2010, this study conducts a detailed content analysis of annual reports to assess and compare the volume and patterns of risk disclosures. Panel regressions are used to explore how risk disclosures related to corporate risk proxies and performance indicators.

Over the sample period, Canadian and German firms increase the volume but largely maintain the patterns of risk disclosures. Risk disclosures relate to corporate risk proxies but are not incrementally informative to assess firm performance.

The paper contributes to research on risk reporting by providing detailed cross-country evidence for a period particularly shaped by significant risk. The findings have implications for the regulation and usefulness of risk reporting.

The study aims to analyse annual reports of the non-financial European firms listed at the EURO STOXX 50 index over the period of 2007 and 2011.

This study intends to address two main issues: to what extent the country-level institutional forces compel (directly) firm's risk reporting (RR) behaviour and in which way these country-level institutional forces moderate the relationship between RR and firm-level characteristics.

Main findings indicate that, during this period, the European listed companies disclosed more risk information on a voluntary basis (such as operational and strategic risks) and with better informative content (more forward-looking and focused on positive news). Consistent with institutional theory, findings confirm that the country-level institutional forces explain variations on RR. Additionally, it also indicates that the relationship between RR and leveraged firms is weaker among countries with stronger institutional forces. These findings have several implications for investors and regulators in Europe basically in helping achieve efficiency in investment decisions and to stimulate further efforts to improve RR regulations.

This study makes two major contributions. First, it extends Elshandidy's et al. (2015) work by using other country-level institutional forces that capture the efficacy of corporate boards, the protection of minority shareholders' interests, country's level of democracy, law enforcement mechanisms and press freedom. Second, it uses firms that are considered as a blue-chip representation of super-sector leaders in the Eurozone (but from different institutional contexts). This research setting can be more insightful in shedding some light towards our understanding on how these leading firms can promote innovative and high quality level of RR and how country-level driving forces influence these variables.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of US dollar exchange rate risk on the value of Canadian non‐financial firms.

The sample, from the Compustat database, includes all non‐financial Canadian firms with sales over $100 million. The study segregates firms into hedging and non‐hedging groups and applies statistical techniques to test if hedging enhances value.

The results demonstrate that Canadian firms that have higher levels of US$ sales tend to use derivatives more frequently through higher levels of US$ exposure. Firms that have both US sales and assets appear less likely to use hedging. Firms with an American subsidiary and use financial instruments to hedge have higher values. When operational hedging is used with financial hedging, it is a value enhancing activity increasing their market‐to‐book by 14 per cent and market value‐to‐sales by 40 per cent. Incremental impact of these two hedging strategies is to enhance value by 7 per cent.

The sample from Compustat captures large capitalization Canadian firms but ignores about 75 per cent of Canadian firms. There is a bias towards larger firms. Some hedging items are not disclosed on financial statements. A survey would enhance and complement these results.

The paper finds that it is important for Canadian firms that have exports denominated in US dollars to hedge their exposure. The full value of hedging is reaped by using both operational and financial hedges.

This study is the first that examines US dollar risk management by Canadian firms.

This paper aims to examine the role of the audit committee function as an internal assurance provider in the emerging integrated reporting (IR) practice. In particular, the authors examine the role of the overall effectiveness, as well as specific aspects, of the audit committee function in IR practice.

The authors examine the integrated reports of 246 firm-year observations of large South African companies over a three-year period (2011-2013), following the introduction of an “apply or explain” IR requirement and an embedded “combined assurance” model in South Africa. Drawing from conflicting theoretical perspectives of economics-based (e.g. agency theory) and socio-political theories (e.g. legitimacy theory), the authors develop competing hypotheses to predict the role of the overall, as well as specific aspects, of the audit committee function in IR practice.

Consistent with the predictions of economics-related theories, the authors find that the overall effectiveness of the audit committee function has a strong positive association with the extent and quality of IR practice. In particular, audit committee authority and meetings are shown to have a significant positive impact on IR practice. However, as implied by socio-political theories, the authors do not find a significant association between key aspects of the audit committee function such as audit committee independence and financial expertise and IR practice.

This study informs local and international regulatory authorities, as well as the business community, about the potential significance of internal assurance mechanisms such as the audit committee function in the emerging IR practice. Given the practical challenges associated with independent external assurance provisions, the findings of this study suggest that internal assurance mechanisms – such as the audit committee function – can be genuine and cost-effective alternative assurance mechanisms in enhancing the credibility and reliability of non-financial reporting practices, particularly the emerging IR practice. The results also inform academic researchers to take cognisance from the expanding roles and responsibilities of audit committees and conduct in-depth investigation on “how” the audit committee function is handling the increasing responsibilities.

The study provides initial empirical account towards the role of the audit committee function in the emerging IR practice. The study is novel because it shows the significance of internal assurance mechanisms in wider organisational reporting practice.