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The purpose of this paper is to highlight the main findings of a successfully defended doctoral thesis that studied factors or interventions causing the discrepancy between how adequate project risks should be managed and how project risks are actually managed.

The approach involved interviews and a survey using questionnaires gathered data from project managers about their experiences with project risk management during two phases of fieldwork. The first phase included in‐depth interviews with information technology (IT) project managers in order to explore patterns involving risk mediators and their influence on project risk management. A web‐based survey was used in the second phase for the purpose of testing these patterns on a wider range of project managers.

Specific risk‐related interventions strongly influence the effective use of project risk management: project managers tended to deny, avoid, ignore risks and to delay the management of risk. Risks were perceived as discomforting, not agreed upon. IT project managers were unaware of risks and considered them to be outside their scope of influence and preferred to let risks resolve themselves rather than proactively engaging with them. As a consequence, factors such as the lack of awareness of risks by IT project managers appeared to constrain the application of project risk management with the result that risk had an adverse influence on the outcome of IT projects.

The underlying rational assumptions of project risk management and the usefulness of best practice project risk management standards as a whole need to be questioned because of the occurrence of interventions such as the lack of information. IT project managers should first prevent risk‐related interventions from influencing the use of project risk management. However, if this is not possible, they should be prepared to adapt to risks influencing the project outcome.

The paper contradicts the myth of a “self‐evidently” correct project risk management approach. It defines interventions that constrain project manager's ability to manage project risk.

Introduces the basic concepts of risk management and their application to the field of facilities management (FM). Identifies the main classes of risk relevant to FM and introduces a model for determining the exposure of an organization to risk and for identifying the level of control that may be exercised over particular risks. Discusses responsibilities for risk and provides a plan of action for risk management.

States that information and help on managing business risk was sought by the Financial and Management Accounting Committee of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). Examines Pricewaterhouse‐Coopers part in this – in their guise as Global Risk Management Solutions and the guidance in an emerging area. Further discusses risk management and the interest in it, its improvement possibilities and the adoption of an integrated approach. Proposes that the implementation of risk architecture is not a response to risk but rather a paradigm shift that involves enterprises changing.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the management process considering risks and performances in developing new products.

The paper provides risk factors and performance factors based on literature reviews and then discusses risk and performance management processes during the product development period. Some lessons for effective risk management and performance measures are reported.

The timing of risk management and performance measures is important to the impact level of performance.

This proposed framework could be used as a basis for systematic management of R&D investment projects.

The paper provides insights into the R&D committee's role in developing new products.

Against the backdrop of the fledgling entrepreneurship development and the imperatives of risk management to mitigate failure, this chapter discusses the impact of risk management practice on the development of African businesses. It also considers how best to align the practice of risk management in order to achieve business continuity. More than ever before, global competitiveness and the need to trade‐out of declining profits are currently driving businesses into risk management efficiencies in order to continue achieving increased returns on assets employed/equities for their shareholders. The attainment of these growth objectives can often be affected by several types of business risk (financial and operational) coupled with unpredicted movements in prices. These movements especially in times of high volatilities impact materially on profit growth potentials regardless of how well a business is managed. This chapter suggests how African business executives can evolve their business management styles to imbed risk management at all stages.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a General Systems Theory (GST) risk management framework and conducts a preliminary investigation into its potential benefits.

A risk management framework with four domains is developed by applying GST to property. Risk management in five listed Australian Real Estate Investment Trusts (A‐REITs) is benchmarked against the GST ideal using public web‐sites information. A‐REIT volatility‐adjusted returns are calculated using Treynor ratios for the year to May 2010. The link between risk management score and entity performance is then investigated.

The GST framework directs attention to risks involving surveillance, capacity and controls. However, as predicted by the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH), the study found no link between assessed risk management and volatility‐moderated annual returns to May 2010.

The risk scoring was predicated on publicly available data, with limited analysis of financial statements. The sample size was restricted.

Successful entities are well governed, focused and innovative. Robust finances allow exploitation of emerging opportunity when business conditions become favourable. Planning and environmental management capabilities are essential.

The paper makes conceptual and practical contributions. Conceptually, it develops a GST risk management framework. Practically, albeit for a handful of entities, the paper illustrates how the GST approach to risk management could be effectively deployed. The paper also outlines a pathway for more refined risk management research.

Aims to identify awareness of and involvement in risk assessments, training, incident reporting, information giving and consenting in an acute health care context. Explores how nurse managers perceived risk management as a concept and if they saw advanced neonatal nurse practitioners having a role to play in this activity. The method used was a postal survey of 62 nurse managers or clinical specialists responsible for neonatal nursing care services within NHS Trusts in the UK. Results show that while the nurse managers studies understood the definition of risk management in general, they were more vague about certain aspects of that definition. The nurse managers appeared to be passive in their dissemination and taking forward of risk management strategies, rather than proactively “promoting and helping them forward” as may be expected in facilitative managerial behaviour. Concludes that the challenges of clinical governance demand more proactive approaches to effect and demonstrate change, and support ongoing clinical quality improvements.

The purpose of this research was first to determine the competencies mandatory of risk managers, and second, to consider the implications of such competencies in determining modules appropriate for inclusion in any prospective undergraduate qualification with specialisation in risk management.

A qualitative research approach was followed, involving academics teaching risk management in a focus group and making use of interactive qualitative analysis (IQA).

The competencies identified were business management skills, financial knowledge, an understanding of the risk management process, governance and compliance, people management and technical skills. These will be explained in greater detail in the paper.

The implications for teaching are that an undergraduate curriculum in risk management will have to combine majors such as business management, financial management, risk management, industrial psychology and communication. These majors need to be complemented by modules in governance and compliance management, as well as information and communication technology.

The implication for practice is that risk management professionals and members of the Institute of Risk Management of South Africa need to avail themselves to serve on an advisory board of academic departments offering risk management qualifications. Risk management is a developing science and requires inputs about research and the curriculation of qualifications.

The implication for public policy is that the South African Qualifications Authority and the Council for Higher Education should reconsider their requirements for designators (specialised qualifications). The implications for research are that IQA provides clarity on the knowledge and skills required to develop a competency-based qualification in risk management. Further research should benchmark qualifications and propose a curriculum for a bachelor’s degree in risk management.

The use of IQA is a novel way of ensuring rigour and objectivity in arriving at a description of the required knowledge, skills, values and attributes of risk managers. This paper will assist in the compilation of a new curriculum for an undergraduate qualification in risk management; thus, ensuring such qualification will provide a competency-based qualification that will meet the needs of the profession.

Construction organisations cannot underestimate the improvement in public–private partnership (PPP) projects’ implementation. At the same time, construction organisations cannot overlook the risk arising from engaging in PPP construction projects. Hence, this study aims to establish the influence of risk resource management (RRM) in managing PPP risk in the construction industry in Ghana.

The researchers adopted qualitative and quantitative research methods to achieve the aim of the study, in which Delphi questions and a close-ended questionnaire were developed. A total of 650 construction specialists, including procurement officers, consultants, project managers, quantity surveyors, site engineers and planning officers were chosen using random and purposive sampling techniques. Recovered data were analysed using descriptive statistics and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). The CFA maximum likelihood estimation extractor compresses 19 variables into 3 pattern matrices.

The results of the study revealed three factors that measure RRM in Ghana’s PPP construction industry, including financial resource management which was influenced by communicating the budget to project team members and project partners understanding the budget, and material resource management which was influenced by the provision of materials transportation and provision of delivery programs and labour resource management which was impacted by a commitment to pay social security and taxes and provision of good salaries, to address RRM in PPP construction organisations.

To incessantly improve the PPP risk management (RM) in construction through RRM, there should be a strong liaison between the universities, government agencies and the construction industry, and such collaboration will assist the industry to obtain first-hand information regarding the study findings and how they can be implemented to help the development of RM in the construction industry. This study is limited to Ghana and CFA and further study should explore structural equation model to determine the structure and measurement model of the risk resource variables.

The study may be valuable to industry stakeholders looking for new approaches to improve RM in their construction activities, particularly in PPP projects. Also, to assist reduce PPP risk, construction companies should use RRM in their organisations.

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.