Introduktion Kritik har riktats mot utformningen av revisionsriskmodellenoch trots det är den en viktig del förbedömningen av revisionsrisken i planeringsfasen. Ioch med detta är det relevant att studera användarnas,det vill säga revisorernas, syn på revisionsriskmodellenoch dess användning. Syfte Uppsatsens syfte är att förklara revisorers uppfattningom användningen av de olika riskerna i revisionsriskmodellen. Metod Studien använder sig av en kvantitativ metod. Vigenomför en enkätundersökning med auktoriseraderevisorer. Data samlas in med hjälp av SurveyMonkeyoch analyseras med SPSS. Slutsatser Våra resultat visar att revisorer som medverkat iundersökningen upplever att inneboende risk varviktigast följt av kontrollrisk och därefter upptäcktsrisk.Vi ser dock att bedömningen av inneboende riskoch kontrollrisk sker sammanvägt och att de påverkasav varandra vilket stärker ett flertal tidigare studier. / Introduction Criticism has been leveled at the design of theaudit risk model, even though it is an importantpart of the assessment of audit risk in the planningphase. As a result of this, it is relevant to studyusers’, namely auditors’, approach to the audit riskmodel and its use. Purpose The purpose of this thesis is to explain auditors'interpretation of the use of the various risks in theaudit risk model. Method The study uses a quantitative approach. The datahas been collected through a survey usingSurveyMonkey and then analyzed with SPSS. Conclusions Our results show that the auditors who participatedin the survey felt that inherent risk was mostimportant, followed by control risk, and thereafterdetection risk. However, we see that theassessment of inherent and control risks iscombined and that they are influenced by eachother, which strengthens several previous studies.

Banks represent one of the most important parts of the economy in the world. As a result, decisions of bank management affect not just the direct bank stakeholders but the state of the economy and society as a whole. This became evident during the latest financial crisis in 2007 where the failure of one bank resulted in the domino falling that affected banks globally. The regulators increase their attention to the risks that bank face and their measures and requirements. Therefore, the research within the banking area has important consequences from both theoretical and practical side.   The purpose of this project is to investigate whether there is a relationship between dividends that Nordic banks pay and different types of risks such as market, credit (including default), liquidity and operational. The results of the research will contribute to the knowledge in finance and help different stakeholders to understand possible reasons for different dividends level.   The methodological position works as a foundation for the conduction of the research. The epistemological and ontological views applied in this project are positivism and objectivism. The deductive research approach and quantitative research strategy are used for the research and thus the collection and analysis of the archival data of 19 Nordic banks over five year time horizon. The research can therefore be described as a panel study.   Based on the previous research papers the following proxies for risks have been used in the research: market risk – capital requirement for market risk to total assets, credit risk – loan loss provisions to total assets, default risk – Altman Z-score, liquidity risk –liquidity coverage ratio, operational risk – economic capital (capital requirement) for operational risk to total asset.   Ordinary Least Square regression analysis is performed over the collected data in order to fulfil the purpose of the project. The tests results identify that there are no statistically significant relationship between dividends and market, credit, default and liquidity risks and the statistically significant negative relationship between the dividends and operational risk in Nordic banks. These findings contribute to a new knowledge within the finance and banking area in particular. Additionally, this project might be used as a foundation for the further research within the field. The findings are also useful for stakeholders in understanding banks risk level.

The usage of information systems (IS) within organizations has become crucial. Information is one of the most vulnerable resources within an enterprise. Information can be exposed, tampered or made non-accessible, where the integrity, confidentiality or availability becomes affected. The ability to manage risks is therefore a central issue in enterprises today. In order to manage risks, the risks need to be identified and further evaluated. All kind of threats with the possibility to negatively affect the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of the organization need to be reviewed. The process of identifying and estimating risks and possible measures is called risk analysis. There are two main categories of risk analysis, qualitative and quantitative. A quantitative method involves interpreting numbers from data and is based on objective inputs. A qualitative method involves interpreting of subjective inputs such as brainstorming and interviews. A common approach is to apply a qualitative method, however a lot of criticism has been raised against using subjective inputs to assessing risks. Secure State is a consulting company with specialist expertise in the field of information security. They help their customers to build trust in the customers systems and processes, making their customers businesses operate with consideration to information security. One service offered by Secure State is risk analysis, and currently they perform qualitative risk analysis. Given all criticisms against a qualitative approach for assessing risks, this study developed a quantitative risk analysis method for Secure State. According to participants, who attended at a risk analysis where the developed quantitative risk analysis method was used, the quantitative risk analysis method improved the risk assessment. Since risks and their effects are decomposed into smaller components in the proposed quantitative risk analysis method, interpretations of risks and their meaning during assessments less likely differed. Therefore, the common understanding of a risk increases, which makes the quality of the evaluation of risks increase. Furthermore, the usage of statistical data increases in the developed quantitative risk analysis method. Additionally, the quantitative method handles the fact that all data used is imperfect. The data is imperfect since it is used to describe the future, and the future has not happened yet.

Many construction projects suffer from mismanagement despite continuous improvement in the field of project risk management. With the construction boom in the Middle East, and especially the Gulf region, construction projects suffer from a high failure rate. The lack of the implementation of standard risk management methods in the construction industry of the Gulf region leads to construction projects that suffer from poor performance, delays, disputes and claims. In order to design a standard risk management model, there is a need for an in-depth study of the construction environment to lay down the foundation for designing a Standard Construction Risk Management Model in the future. This study aims to identify and assess risk factors during the construction phase of construction projects in the Gulf region focusing on two countries of the Gulf region – the State of Kuwait and Kingdom of Bahrain. The risk factors (RF) were identified and assessed and responsiblty shares were allocated to construction parties: clients, consultants and contractors. The research strategy was a Sequential mixed-method. It was adopted by means of interview surveys followed by a questionnaire. The study started with a qualitative approach in which eleven practitioners were interviewed to evaluate and validate a questionnaire. This was followed by questionnaires distributed to a representative sample of 140 consultants, 128 contractors and 139 clients in the State of Kuwait, in addition to 71 consultants, 99 contractors and 78 clients in the Kingdom of Bahrain, to assess the negative impact of the risk factors during the construction phase on the completion of construction projects. Parametric tests were used to analyse the collected data. Including, the Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) test, the independent-samples t-test, and Pearson correlation coefficient (r) test. The study revealed a difference in perception of the risk factors negative impact on project completion between Kuwait and Bahrain, Bahrain perceives highest degree of impact on projects. On the categories level, both countries agreed on the Finance category as the main factor threatening project completion, and the External category as having the least impact. In Kuwait, almost all parties agreed on the negative impact of all categories on project completion except contractors who have different perception on management category. Furthermore, clients and consultants held different perceptions on the impact of design category. Bahrain results reveal significant differences in perceptions on the impact of categories between clients and the other parties, however there are slight differences between consultants and contractors in all categories. The limitations of the study include only large contractors and consultants in Kuwait and Bahrain were included in the study. The study was limited to the construction phase of construction projects and only six categories of risk factors were included in the study and This research was based on practitioners and participants opinions rather than actual occurrences on projects.

Compared to other areas of Finance, the field of Project Finance is a relatively unexplored area for both empirical and theoretical research. And in particular, most of the research to date has focused more narrowly on risk management through financial instruments. From another point of view and by looking at different types of projects, Cross Border projects are usually considered 'high risk', mostly due to a lack of adequate overseas environmental information and overseas project experience. Given this setting, this research aims to explore risks attributed to Cross Border Project Financed projects and understand why South African companies should or should not use Project Finance for their Cross Border projects.There were two phases to the research. The first phase consisted of an analysis of literature on Project Finance, the Cross Border project context and Risk Management processes and, the further analysis of fourteen case studies where Cross Border projects have used Project Finance. This was with the aim of extracting risks and relevant allocation and mitigation methods. The second phase consisted of ten interviews with South African Project Finance experts, based on findings from phase one. This phase’s aim was to explore the practical risk allocation and mitigation methods and compare them to what was said in theory, making recommendations for further research into Project Finance in South Africa.The first phase resulted in a broad description of the theory of risks associated with Cross Border Project Financed projects and those specific risks and allocation or mitigation methods addressed in Cross Border projects that have used Project Finance as their financing vehicle. The second phase produced a comparative scheme between what is being addressed in theory as risk allocation and mitigation methods and what is being exercised in South African Project Financed projects. This comparison showed that Project Finance is a recommended financing vehicle for Cross Border projects provided that required due diligence and homework are done upfront. It was concluded that there is a gap between theory and practice in terms of risk allocation and mitigation methods developed for Cross Border Project Financed projects. This research provided a framework to introduce similarities and differences between theory and practice and ended up with a set of recommendations for further research into Project Finance. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

Risk culture is defined as norms of behaviour for individuals and groups that determine the collective ability to identify and understand, openly discuss and act on an organisation’s current and future possible risks. Although studies have been done on risk culture, an assessment of the maturity level of risk culture in a South African government organisation has not been reported in the academic literature. Many government organisations have implemented risk management processes but it seems that, subsequently, no tangible benefits have been realised from applying these processes. The reason for this might be that these organisations did not first embed a risk culture. This article assesses the risk culture maturity level of a South African government organisation. Data were gathered by developing and applying a questionnaire and a checklist. In addition, documents were analysed. The results show that the organisation has established basic risk management processes and structures; however, a mature risk culture was not embedded in the organisational processes.

Academic literature is limited on how to coordinate the compliance and operational risk functions in organisations. The functional overlap between these two functions in financial institutions, such as banks, may result in oversight gaps or unintentional duplication. This paper describes a study on the overlap between these two functions in the second line of risk and control defence. A number of documents were analysed including relevant Basel Committee documents; South African banking legislation and regulations; integrated annual results, risk and capital reports of the four largest South African (the Big Four) banks; as well as internal operational risk and compliance documents of one of the Big Four banks. Based on this study, regulatory and practice based guidelines are proposed, which may be used to improve the efficiency of the compliance and operational risk functions in banks.

A strong risk culture is critical for any organisation to manage its risks. Recent reports from the Auditor-General about a South African government institution (Auditor General of South Africa, 2014) demonstrated that its risks were not being adequately mitigated. The purpose of the study reported on here has therefore been to put this judgement to the test and, because no recognised instrument could be found to evaluate the risk culture, an instrument was developed. Many of the risk culture assessment frameworks available have been developed by consulting companies which could be of value to organisations however this study chose to focus mainly on academic literature. In this descriptive study we used a focus group to identify the possible strengths and weaknesses of the prevailing risk culture, following which a questionnaire was designed and used to assess the current risk culture of the organisation. The results were used to evaluate the risk culture with the aim of proposing steps in which to embed a risk culture. We found that the existing risk culture does not contribute to this organisation’s capacity to manage its risks. We also found that managers in this organisation are not encouraged to take risks to achieve their objectives and employees are not held accountable for the management of risks. In agreement with previous studies which found that training in risk management is important, this study suggests that training should be compulsory for all senior management. This study also found that factors of tone at the top, accountability, communication, risk competence and risk capacity are critical to embed a risk culture in an organisation. This study contributes to the existing literature by suggesting ways in which a risk culture could be embedded in an organisation. The results of this research could be useful to organisations, boards, and risk committees.

Risk culture is defined as norms of behaviour for individuals and groups that determine the collective ability to identify and understand, openly discuss and act on an organisation’s current and future possible risks. Although studies have been done on risk culture, an assessment of the maturity level of risk culture in a South African government organisation has not been reported in the academic literature. Many government organisations have implemented risk management processes but it seems that, subsequently, no tangible benefits have been realised from applying these processes. The reason for this might be that these organisations did not first embed a risk culture. This article assesses the risk culture maturity level of a South African government organisation. Data were gathered by developing and applying a questionnaire and a checklist. In addition, documents were analysed. The results show that the organisation has established basic risk management processes and structures; however, a mature risk culture was not embedded in the organisational processes.

Academic literature is limited on how to coordinate the compliance and operational risk functions in organisations. The functional overlap between these two functions in financial institutions, such as banks, may result in oversight gaps or unintentional duplication. This paper describes a study on the overlap between these two functions in the second line of risk and control defence. A number of documents were analysed including relevant Basel Committee documents; South African banking legislation and regulations; integrated annual results, risk and capital reports of the four largest South African (the Big Four) banks; as well as internal operational risk and compliance documents of one of the Big Four banks. Based on this study, regulatory and practice based guidelines are proposed, which may be used to improve the efficiency of the compliance and operational risk functions in banks.