Context and rationale – This work originates from policy priorities established within Defra to manage exotic animal diseases (EAD); specifically to understand the causes of low probability events, and to establish contingencies to manage outbreak incidents. Outbreaks of exotic animal diseases, e.g. FMD, CSF and HPAI, can cause economic and social impacts of catastrophic proportions. The UK’s government develops and implements policies and controls to prevent EAD and thus minimise these impacts. Control policies to achieve this are designed to address the vulnerabilities within the control systems. However, data are limited for both the introduction of an EAD as well as its resurgence following the disposal of infected carcasses, i.e. the pre-outbreak and post-outbreak phases of an EAD event. These lack of data compromises the development of policy interventions to improve protection. To overcome these data limitations, predictive models are used to predict system vulnerabilities. Cont/d.

abstract: Recent studies have identified that contractors in the Saudi construction industry are not the main party that cause risks as owners and other parties have the major share of causing risks. However, with the identification that risks out of contractors’ control are a leading cause of low performance, there is a lack of efficient risk mitigation practices in Saudi to manage these risks. The main aim of this dissertation is to assess the current practices applied by contractors to minimize risk out of their control and develop a risk mitigation model to manage these risks. The main objectives of the study are: investigating the risks that are out of contractors’ control, assessing the contractors’ current risk mitigation and performance measurement practices, and finally developing and validating a risk mitigation model to minimize risks out of contractors’ control and measure performance of involved project parties. To achieve the study aim, a mixed methodological approach was adopted. Theoretical approaches were utilized to review previous research and to develop a conceptual risk mitigation framework followed by a practical approach that is considered with collecting data from contractors. The quantitative method was mainly used to meet the study objectives through distributing a survey in the form of a questionnaire. As a consolidation of the study findings, the top ranked risks that are out of contractors’ control were identified. Furthermore, the results identified that the contractors’ current risk management and performance measurement practices are not effective in minimizing projects risks caused by other parties and ineffective in measuring performance of all parties. The developed model focuses on increasing accountability of project parties through mitigating project parties’ activities and risks with measuring the deviations and identifying sources of deviations. Transparency is utilized in the model through sharing weekly updates of the activities and risks combined with updated information of performance measurements of all project parties. The study results showed that project risks can be minimized and projects’ performance can be increased if contractors shift their focus using the developed model from only managing their own activities and risks to managing all project parties’ activities and risks. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Construction Management 2018

Major changes with regards to digitalization and new customer behaviours have transformed the retail industry in many ways. One of the latest trends in retail is the focus on omnichannel, in order to stay competitive in today's changing market conditions. Omnichannel is about creating a seamless distribution and experience for the customers between channels. These changes that come with digitalization come with strategical and developmental challenges. As well as an increased pressure to work more efficiently and at an accelerated speed to cope with new trends. This can be hard to accomplish, to embark into unknown territory since no organization truly has reached omnichannel. Whilst speed and innovation play a vital part in adapting to new rules of conduct within retail, risk management is still a part of their project management tasks. The purpose of this thesis is to explore how management is working with handling risks that can occur in the transition processes to omnichannel. This thesis is based on a qualitative research design where seven semi-structured interviews have been conducted with managers from various large Swedish retail organizations. The conclusion shows three main themes from the empirical findings, which are the following: Operational risks are more common and manageable than strategical, Depending on project scope; risk assessment and mitigation differs and the diversity and roles of employees.

Theses "Risk Management of the selected business entity" is focused on risk management, analysis and optimization in the consumer cooperative COOP. Consumer cooperative covers 121 sales units in the district Zdar nad Sazavou and devoted mainly selling food and non-food goods, which are facing high competition from hypermarkets and supermarkets. The first part contains the definition of consumer cooperatives deals with general characteristics of the risks division and possible measures for its reduction, which is nowadays a very important part of risk analysis. The second part deals with the analysis in five categories of risk and risk assessment. These suggestions are based on analysis of solutions found to eliminate the risks, which will help to create a stronger team position in the market.

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

Random disruptions resulting in loss of functionality in service legs or intermodal terminals of transportation networks are an inevitable part of operations, and considering the crucial role of aforementioned networks, it is prudent to strive towards avoiding high-consequence disruption events. The magnitude of the negative impact of a disruption is dependent on component criticality; therefore, limited resources of disruption mitigation should be assigned to the infrastructure with the highest priority. However, categorizing the service legs and terminals based on their actual post-disruption impact is computationally heavy and inefficient. We propose a methodology based on the combination of a bi-objective hazmat shipment planning optimization model and machine learning to identify critical infrastructure more efficiently. The proposed methodology is applied to part of CSX Corporation’s intermodal rail-truck network in the United States as a realistic size problem instance, in order to gain managerial insight and to evaluate the performance of the methodology. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This study examines private foundation positioning and actions in respect to governance and market considerations in the multi-national arena around the issue of ocean conservation in the empirical setting of the Arctic Ocean. Existing research has focused primarily on foundations in their domestic setting or alternatively in their international engagement within a foreign country. There is evidence that foundation creation and activity addressing global issues are rising. Questions remain around the role of foundations in global governance and their relationship to the market. Using a qualitative case study methodology, this study was guided by a framework based on governance and market. The framework incorporated Young and Frumkin’s conceptualization of government-nonprofit relations enhanced by three additional United Nations ocean-related frameworks, and an orientation toward the market based on empirical studies. Five key actions carried out by foundations were also considered. The study was organized around two ocean conservation policy contexts to see similarities and differences. The research focused on a total of eleven foundation case studies, drawing on data from publicly available documents, grant databases, the observation of public events, and sixteen semi-structured on-line video interviews of experts, foundation, government, and NGO representatives. The study supports the theoretical model demonstrating that foundations generally complemented government activity underway and took adversarial stances at specific decision-making junctures. Foundations were attentive to international frameworks that intersected with their issue area and approach. The study challenges the model due to the difficulty in differentiating the supplemental and complementary positioning. Governance architecture and interlocking policy fields kept foundations from driving the agenda. Primary actions were funding and deploying a variety of non-financial assets. No high-risk funding linked to markets was detected and sustainable market solutions coupled with regulation were favored approaches. Risk mitigation was a primary concern prompting questions around foundation innovation. This research points to factors hindering foundations to take on a key role in governance and the evolving dimensions of the market prompting further research on foundation activity in the multi-national arena. It provides scholars and practitioners insights into theoretical and practical implications for foundations working in complex, politically tense contexts.

This dissertation is composed of three essays; the first two examine the decisionmaking of potato producing households in Bolivia and the third examines well-being changes among Zimbabwe households. The first essay entitled “The role of risk mitigation in production efficiency: A case study of potato cultivation in the Bolivian Andes” estimates the costs of self-managing environmental risk through activity and environmental diversification. Risk management has the potential to reduce income variability but at the cost of increasing production inefficiency, which we measure employing a stochastic production frontier. Among variables capturing environmental diversification, discontinuity between fields has the most detrimental effect on production efficiency. Activity diversification, measured by the ratio of potato to total crop revenue, has a stronger impact on inefficiency and yield losses than any of the environmental diversification variables. The second essay entitled “Determinants of market participation decisions and marketing choices in Bolivia” examines three decisions related to potato market participation: market entry, volume sold, and market choice. The first two are analyzed using a Heckman selection model. Results indicate that isolation, measured by population density and distance to markets, negatively impacts market entry. The most important determinant of quantity sold is land holding. Market choices are judged according to second-order stochastic dominance (SOSD). Market choices meeting the SOSD criterion are referred to as optimal marketing strategies as they have the higher expected payoff for a minimal income variance. Results suggest that the probability of selecting an optimal marketing strategy increases with quantity sold, access to market information, and access to liquidity while it decreases with distance to markets. The third essay entitled “A profile of changes in well-being in Zimbabwe, 2001- 2007/8, using an asset index methodology” shows that it is possible to examine intertemporal and spatial changes in well-being in the absence of consumption expenditures data by using an asset index. The asset index was constructed using Polychoric Principal Component Analysis. Results indicate that poverty and extremely poverty grew significantly in rural Zimbabwe while in urban areas, poverty diminished and extreme poverty grew. / Ph. D. / LTRA-7 (Pathways to CAPS in the Andes)

This paper explores the role of risk management during the pre-production phase of film projects. The purpose is to find the key risk management factors in film production and find which actions top management takes in the pre-production phase to mitigate these. To address this, the following research questions are used: (1) What are the key risks associated with film projects, and what actions are taken by top management to mitigate these?Followed by our sub-questions of, (2) How are risks identified in the pre-production of film projects? (3) How does communication and stakeholder engagement contribute to risk mitigation in film projects? (4) Which are the most common and recommended risk mitigation strategies? The central problem addressed in this paper is the lack of a comprehensive understanding of how risk management practices can contribute to mitigating risks in film projects. To explore this issue, we use a qualitative research methodology, including semi-structured interviews with five top management professionals in the film industry. The interviews aimed at gathering in-depth insights into their experiences and practices related to risk management during the pre-production phase. The data collected was analyzed using thematic analysis. Our research identified key risks in film projects and what methods top management uses to identify these risks in pre-production. Furthermore, we present how communication and stakeholder management contribute to risk management in pre- production. Lastly, we provide the most common risk mitigation strategies applied in the film industry. Our findings offer practical recommendations for professionals in the film industry and for up-and-coming producers and directors who want ground pillars to stand on when starting a film project. Furthermore, our findings contribute to the existing risk management literature by focusing on a not-so-well-studied subject, namely risk management, in the film's pre-production phase.

This project deals with exploring 1) travel-related health risk perception, and 2) actions taken to mitigate that health risk. Ordered logistic regression models were used to identify factors associated with the perceived risk of contracting influenza at work, school, daycare, stores, restaurants, libraries, hospitals, doctor’s offices, public transportation, and family or friends’ homes. Based on the models, factors influencing risk perception of contracting influenza in public places for discretionary activities (stores, restaurants, and libraries) are consistent but differ from models of discretionary social visits to someone’s home. Mandatory activities (work, school, daycare) seem to have a few unique factors (e.g., age, gender, work exposure), as do different types of health-related visits (hospitals, doctors’ offices). Across all of the models, recent experience with the virus, of either an individual or a household member, was the most consistent set of factors increasing risk perception. Using such factors in examining transportation implications will require tracking virus outbreaks for use in conjunction with other factors. Subsequently, social-health risk mitigation strategies were studied with the objective of understanding how risk perception influences an individual’s protective behavior. For this objective, this study analyzes travel-actions associated with two scenarios during an outbreak of influenza: 1) A sick person avoiding spreading the disease and 2) A healthy person avoiding getting in contact with the disease. Ordered logistic regression models were used to identify factors associated with mitigation behavior in the first scenario: visiting a doctor’s office, avoiding public places, avoiding public transit, staying at home; and in the second scenario: avoiding public places, avoiding public transit, staying at home. Based on the models for Scenario 1, the factors affecting the decision of avoiding public places, avoiding public transit, and staying at home were fairly consistent but differ for visiting a doctor’s office. However, Scenario 2 models were consistent with their counterpart mitigation models in Scenario 1 except for two factors: gender and household characteristics. Across all the models from Scenario 1, gender was the most significant factor, and for Scenario 2, the most significant factor was the ratio of household income to the household size. / Master of Science / Transmission of a communicable disease depends on the social interactions of the members of society. Generally, individuals associate their health-protection behavior to the perception of health risk associated with that activity. Hence, individuals with high health-risk perception are likely to participate in a protective action to reduce the threat of getting infected with influenza. However, in some cases, even if a high health risk is perceived, an individual might have a decreased likelihood to take actions to mitigate that risk. This behavior could be associated with their inability to carry out recommendations, such as vaccination (due to the cost of vaccination) or adopting protective behaviors such as social isolation (switching from public transit to personal vehicle due to the associated cost). This behavior, of either adopting or rejecting protective action, can be explained by protection motivation theory. This theory explains the individual’s perception of the severity of an event (i.e., threat appraisal), and individual’s expectancy of carrying out recommendations (risk mitigation strategies) to reduce threat (i.e., coping appraisal). Both, health risk perception and risk-mitigation strategies are studied for changes in travel decisions.