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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.

Accounting education is passing through a critical stage. In 1988 the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) voted overwhelmingly to require 150 semester hours of education, including a baccalaureate degree, for new members from the year 2000. AICPA together with the National Association of State Boards of Accounting (NASBA) is working to require the 150 hours education requirement to sit for the CPA examination. Twenty four states have passed various versions of this law; many more are in the process of passing it.

This case looks at the design and implementation of a risk management strategy. It reviews the early moves by Great Plains Energy (GPE) to establish a corporate-wide Enterprise Risk Management program. The corporate Chief Risk Officer is Andrea Bielsker. Andrea appointed Jana Utter to take charge of coordinating the design and implementation of the ERM program. Utter faces a number of challenges. She has had to first conceptualize the program given the charge by the Board of Directors, then design a process by which she identifies the risks that the corporation faces, assist in designing measures for the risks, and work with the various divisions and functional areas to put processes in place to mitigate the identified risks.

Organizations, would they be individual companies or large multi-firm networks, face a wide variety of potential risks requiring dedicated keen management. It all the better applies to supply-chains as risk, related to both physical and information flows, pervades the whole logistics network and has acquired a new and growing security dimension since 9/11. More specifically, as they are now under the permanent threat of terrorism, and because offering sufficient security levels is bound to become a necessary condition for global supply-chain membership, seaports need to adjust their risk management strategy and processes accordingly. In such a context, this paper aims at describing the project of a decision-support system, dedicated to container transit security-wise decision making and which features an expert-system architecture.