Managing Risk and Opportunity: The Governance of Strategic Risk-Taking

Abstract

This book promotes good risk governance and risk management practices to corporate managers, executives, and directors wherever they operate around the world. The major corporate scandals have their roots in governance failure pointing to the link between risk governance and good performance outcomes. This topic is timely and of interest both to the academic community as well as to practicing managers, executives, and directors. The volume focuses on contemporary risk leadership issues based on recent research insights but avoids excessive technical language and mathematical formulas. The book is framed around the challenges imposed on executives and directors in dealing with an increasingly complex and unpredictable world. This requires a new risk leadership focus that not only avoids the downside risks but also considers ways to exploit the upside potential offered by a dynamic environment. The underlying logic is built on the principles of financial economics where benefits derive from reducing bankruptcy costs and increasing future cash inflows. This provides a stringent framework for analyzing the effect of different risk management actions and behaviors in effective risk-taking organizations. Hence, the book addresses the potential for upside gains as much as the threats of downside losses that represent the conventional risk perspectives. It states the simple fact that you must be willing to take risk to increase strategic responsiveness and corporate manoeuverability. The text builds the arguments in logical steps explicating relevant techniques and practices along the way that invite to immediate applications and practical thinking