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A commonly misunderstood characteristic of ERM in Switzerland is that it is perceived as a risk minimization tool. However, ERM is about controlling an ideal risk exposure level to pursue strategic objectives. ERM has emerged as an important business topic in Switzerland. As major challenges still pose a threat to successful ERM implementation, this study provides some causes for reflection on how to implement ERM model in order to gain a comprehensive view on all risks, opportunities and their respective interdependencies. Moreover, this study suggests policy makers to think about how to strengthen risk-based disclosures in the future.

The currency premium is one of the three components of the differential between local and foreign interest rates. Emerging economies such as South Africa typically face positive interest rate differentials, that is, a higher cost of capital than developed economies. In this chapter we aim at identifying the determinants of the South African rand–U.S. dollar currency premium using monthly data over the period 1997–2008. We carry out an empirical analysis using dynamic time series econometric techniques to estimate the determinants of the one-month and one-year currency premia. Our findings show that the currency premia at both horizons are driven by long-run movements in the expected inflation differential between South Africa and the United States, risk aversion as a proxy for the price of rand exchange risk, and the volatility of the rand exchange rate as an indicator of the quantity of that risk. Misalignments in the real effective or rand–U.S. dollar bilateral exchange rates display mixed results in terms of their impact and statistical significance on both currency premium. Our parameter estimators overall are stable and robust to sample variations. Monetary policy is an important determinant of currency premia at both one-month and one-year horizons, but risk aversion is equally important to determine its time fluctuations.

Identifying and managing supply chain risk is crucial for the competitiveness of a company. However, research focused on the risks of supply chain operations in Brazil is scarce. The purpose of this study is to analyze and assess the risk of cargo theft in the country. The methodology adopted is deductive and based on an analysis of historical data from January 2015 to November 2017, aiming to evaluate risk based on probability and impact. The findings unveil a scenario of criminality of transporting goods in Brazil, where the use of force, violence, and threats to steal goods is most likely to occur en route or when parked in key locations on the way to the distribution center. On the other hand, the higher impact cargo crimes are concentrated en route to the customer. This chapter provides a better understanding of the risks of transporting goods by road in Brazil and contributes to a more efficient supply chain design by identifying the risks and assessing the primary locations of the crimes along with their modi operandi and the period of the day during which the crime occurs.

Due to the increasing size and complexity of construction projects, construction engineering and management involves the coordination of many complex and dynamic processes and relies on the analysis of uncertain, imprecise and incomplete information, including subjective and linguistically expressed information. Various modelling and computing techniques have been used by construction researchers and applied to practical construction problems in order to overcome these challenges, including fuzzy hybrid techniques. Fuzzy hybrid techniques combine the human-like reasoning capabilities of fuzzy logic with the capabilities of other techniques, such as optimization, machine learning, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) and simulation, to capitalise on their strengths and overcome their limitations. Based on a review of construction literature, this chapter identifies the most common types of fuzzy hybrid techniques applied to construction problems and reviews selected papers in each category of fuzzy hybrid technique to illustrate their capabilities for addressing construction challenges. Finally, this chapter discusses areas for future development of fuzzy hybrid techniques that will increase their capabilities for solving construction-related problems. The contributions of this chapter are threefold: (1) the limitations of some standard techniques for solving construction problems are discussed, as are the ways that fuzzy methods have been hybridized with these techniques in order to address their limitations; (2) a review of existing applications of fuzzy hybrid techniques in construction is provided in order to illustrate the capabilities of these techniques for solving a variety of construction problems and (3) potential improvements in each category of fuzzy hybrid technique in construction are provided, as areas for future research.