ecent world events, most notably the global financial
crisis has refocused and intensified interest on
risk and the nature of systems that operate to manage
risk. One area that has received relatively little
attention is the interrelation between risk, risk management
and management accounting and control practices.
From its origins in specialist areas such as occupational
health and safety, insurance, the hedging of
financial risks, credit risk management and project management,
risk management has been identified at the
enterprise level for little more than ten years. New
approaches to risk that emanated in part from academic
discussions and in part from reactions to corporate
failures have now become embedded in corporate governance
practices. The importance of risk management
has been elevated by standard approaches to managing
risk such as the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations
of the Treadway Commission (COSO, 2004);
ISO31000 (International Organization for Standardization,
2009); and the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision
(2001).
Managing risk has long been acknowledged as crucial
to increasing shareholder value but the risk/return
trade-off has not always been well recognised by organizations.
The failure of many high profile financial institutions
has raised widespread concerns about the use of complex
financial products in the relentless pursuit of profit and the
failures of governance and internal control to reduce excessive
risk taking behaviour. Events such as the Deepwater
Horizons oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico not only resulted
in environmental, economic and reputational losses but
also highlight the consequences of poor risk management
practiceswhencost-cutting becomes an organizational priority.
Furthermore, while there has been significant attention
in the accounting literature to financial reporting