Thesis (Ph.D.)--Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in electronic version.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Proefschrift Universiteit Maastricht. / Met lit. opg. - Met samenvatting in het Nederlands.

The existence of complexity, uncertainty and ambiguity in current business environment promotes corporates need to establish good risk governance. Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) has been considered as a way to achieve good risk governance to deal with both upside (e.g. exploit opportunities) and downside (e.g. reduce insolvency) of risk and uncertainty. ERM holistically treats all risk to achieve organisation objective in normal, volatile and crisis situations. The thesis tackles issues in the implementation of ERM and how it has been adopted and implemented in Indian and UK insurance market. Mixed research methods have been employed from a qualitative stand point to explore the research issues, consisting of two surveys in UK and India, over 50 interviews and two case studies in the Indian and UK insurance markets. The research revealed that there is an ambiguity in the understanding of the definitions of ERM and risk appetite across both countries. Major issues in ERM implementation in Indian insurance market are fraud, under-risk reporting and insufficient resources to develop an appropriate risk culture. In the UK insurance market issues are related to customer complaints, fines/penalties, over-risk reporting and lack of capital efficiency. Regulatory risk seen as a major risk in both market, though, in the Indian market lack of regulation is the issue whereas in the UK insurance market lack of clarity in insurance regulation has been emphasised. From intuitional theory and strategic change perspective, the research presents cross-country comparative case studies highlighting four emerging ERM strategies based on the different state of development and maturity of companies: ‘Rudimentary’, ‘Anticipatory’, ‘Resilient’ and ‘Transformatory’ strategies. The case studies highlight the issues within the two insurance companies both internally and externally in a nascent and a mature market. Before companies can adopt a transformatory strategy, both companies require a fundamental understanding of strategic change that eventually can pave the way to good risk governance. Adopting the cognitive lens of strategic change will not only enhance company specific risk-based capabilities but it will improve industry risk-based capabilities through development of professional competence.

The business management literature has largely neglected the theme of risk management for SMEs. So the aim of this research was to explore the current state of risk management in German SMEs and to reveal the problems which firms have with implementing a risk management system. Risk management is a relatively new discipline. Thus until now no general standard has been developed what to understand by a holistic risk management. Based on an extensive literature analysis, this study - besides risk management in the stricter sense - also sees the following components as essential for a holistic risk management: business planning and modern instruments of performance measurement. The present investigation places a special focus on these subsystems. Because of lacking empirical data a nationwide postal questionnaire has been chosen to obtain a broad picture of current risk management practices in German SMEs. A validation and further deepening of the results has been carried out by a larger number of research interviews. Derived from a comprehensive analysis of the questionnaire and the interview results, a scoring approacht o assessth e risk managements ophisticationo f SMEs has been developed. The approach does not, as usual, evaluate one single scoring figure. Insteadi t allows a differentiated assessmenbt y evaluating separates coring figures for each component of a holistic risk management system. The scoring approach presented is very transparent and thus can easily be adapted for similar research problems of risk management. Based on the scoring approach, this study introduces a new typology of risk management practices, derived from the empirical findings. It extracts three types of firms' risk management practices: reactors, defender/prospectors and analysers. The typology draws on the well-established approach of Miles and Snow who developed their types for classifying business organizations. The present study develops the Miles and Snow typology and makes it applicable for the purpose of risk management practices. Each of the three risk management types is described by its determinants with respect to the components of a holistic risk management. Then recommendations are formulated which actions a firm of the respective type should take to improve its risk managementt,h us contributing to the firm's further positive development

Environmental disasters result in the death of tens to hundreds of thousands of people and the loss of US$250-300 billion annually. Vulnerability to environmental disasters stems from both social and biophysical factors. While there is increasing awareness that individual hazards are often found in combination with other environmental or social risks in what can be referred to as multi-hazard landscapes, few studies directly examine how people respond to environmental hazards in a multi-hazard environment and the role that risk reduction and development organizations (DOs) play in that response. In this dissertation, I address this research gap through an investigation of risk perception and management in a multi-hazard environment of eastern Uganda dominated by people relying on subsistence agriculture for their livelihoods. Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative statistical analyses, I investigate how individual farmers and DOs differ in their perception and prioritization of hazards and the factors that influence farmers’ perception of multiple risks and their decisions to adopt best management strategies. Building on this household-level analysis of perception and action, I also draw on data from community-level focus groups and participatory mapping exercises to relate individual to community vulnerability. Results from these analyses show that the factors that shape farmers’ perception and management of different environmental hazards are not universal. Instead, the predictors of risk perception and adoption of best management practices are unique to particular hazards and management strategies. DOs can play an important role in reducing vulnerability through training and material inputs but need to recognize the heterogeneity of communities in doing so. Results show that communities are heterogeneous with respect to vulnerabilities, motivations, and capacities. DO programs must address these differences to achieve perception and behavior changes on a large scale. Participatory mapping exercises can be useful complements to expert risk assessments as they highlight local capacity and risk prioritizations, which do not always align with those determined by outside experts. While mapping is a promising tool for vulnerability analysis, the aspatial and unmappable components of vulnerability require a combination of methods across many scales and data types in order to be more holistically understood.

Projects are pervasive and disparate spanning a plethora of domains. Most projects are unified by certain characteristics regardless of the sector or industry to which they belong i.e. time & budget limitedness, a concern for quality, and a goal orientation. Although, projects have been around for a longtime, the phenomenon of conflict in projects gained interest around the 1960s with the introduction of the matrix form of organization. However, out of all the research papers on project centric conflict between 1960 to 1980 time period, only one is empirically grounded and that too focused on IT projects. Surprisingly, the findings put forward during this time period are to date considered valid and propagated by most project literature as universally true. Several other studies have contributed peripheral contributions to the project conflict literature, however, no study has focused on building an understanding of why and how conflicts arise on projects, how they are managed, and affects they create within projects. Recent concerns pertaining to project failures, despite the existence of well-defined problems and toolsets, gave birth to an ESRC funded research network named `Rethinking Project Management'. Whose members in examining the ontological groundings of project management identified several areas of interest for future research in project management; one of which is complexity. The present study therefore focuses on integrating the concerns of conflict & negotiation within the context of project complexity. Every research has its philosophical bearings. This study is ontologically objectivist and epistemologically subjectivist (consequently the axiology is subjectivist as well). This study accepts a Critical Realist view of the world and perceive the conceivable knowledge about this world to be subjective in nature. As the study is concerned about understanding the processes through which conflict & negotiation reify and interplay within a project the objective is not to find generalizations but rather to seek out patterns of occurrences and to build explanations. The methodology followed in the study is mixed, borrowing from both positivistic and constructivist ideologies. The survey methodology is used to, in loose terms, cast a net and capture the status quo. Results of the survey supplement the literature review driven a priori assumptions and seek out context embedded variables that the literature has not touched upon. Findings from the survey contribute to the succeeding case study methodology, which inquired into their detail through the use of interviews. Data for the study was collected between March through August 2010. During the first phase of the study 86 questionnaires were filled from 73 different projects. The survey data was analyzed using aggregate statistical techniques and a thesaurus based automated coding software named Leximancer. Results of the survey indicate that all projects surveyed had experienced some form of conflict and used at least one type of negotiation technique. A large number of projects faced conflicts related to land access, political pressures, time, interdepartmental relationships, and availability of resources. Project behavior when experiencing conflict exhibits a theme of delay, slowness, and work stoppages; there are also negative effects on group cohesion and productivity. The respondents described projects experiencing conflict as challenging, time consuming, delayed, and difficult. The data also revealed several useful patterns within projects experiencing conflicts. Additionally, baseline data for project complexity was captured using Shenhar and Dvir's Diamond Approach from all the projects surveyed. Findings, from the survey contributed to the study by providing preliminary answers to each of the research questions asked. Data gathered as a result of the survey contributed significantly to the design and orientation of the case study interviews. The second phase of the data collection involved implementation of the case study methodology. Personnel at various levels of nine projects, one government consultant, and a tribal elder were interviewed, for a total of thirty interviews. Additionally, six meetings on one of the projects, and two movie filming sequences were observed. Published and non-published reports on all the projects were examined. Interviews were captured using causal-maps (a cognitive mapping technique) and short notes. The causal-maps were captured using Banxia Decision Explorer and later refined using Cmap (an open-source mapping software). Each project's complexity measurements were taken and compared against the complexity baseline developed as a result of the survey. Results from the case study reveals certain patterns of behavior on the projects, specifically in the interactions taking place between a project and its principle organization, peers, and subordinates. Additionally, I find that quality plays the most active role in project conflict & negotiation and contributes significantly to project complexity because of its interconnection to other concepts and the recursive nature of the connections it spawns. Some factors that were reported by the survey as contributing significantly to project complexity and project conflict & negotiation were disqualified and a foundation laid for further inquiry into the role played by conflict & negotiation in project complexity. In concluding the study the data is first discussed through the lens of Jurgen Habermas' (1984) Theory of Communicative Action (TCA) and is followed by a general discussion on the data. The study concludes with a discussion on the possible future work that could result from this work.

Certain hazard combinations present a risk that is greater than the sum of the risk attributable to each constituent hazard. These ‘synergistic risks’ occur in several domains, can vary in magnitude, and often have life-threatening consequences. However, research concerning the extent to which people understand synergistic risks is in its infancy, and extant studies investigating this topic have encountered problems in identifying valid measures of subjective risk judgments for combined hazards. Consequently, few firm conclusions can be made about the extent to which people understand synergistic risks. This thesis presents four original research papers that aim to provide greater insight into peoples’ judgments of synergistic risks, and investigates how such judgments may be assessed and improved. Each of the studies presented in the four papers employs data obtained via questionnaires specifically designed to address each research question. In the first paper, two studies are presented that examine whether people believe that combined hazards can present synergistic risks. In the second paper, qualitative data is analysed to explore the cognitive reasoning that individuals employ when assessing the risk for combined hazards. The third paper presents a study that assess a new metric for the assessment of risk judgments for combined hazards, and a second study in which domain-experts’ and non-experts’ judgments are compared. The final paper features a study that investigates which message content (i.e., antecedent vs. probabilistic data) most effectively informs people about synergistic risks. The results show that many people can make veridical judgments of synergistic risks. The findings indicate such judgments may depend on factors that include hazard-specific knowledge, judgmental experience and a rudimentary awareness of an xiii underlying causal mechanism for the increased risk. However, many people also make non/less veridical judgments; often underestimating the magnitude of the synergistic risk or employing an additive risk model which corresponds to the notion of ‘adding’ one hazard to another. Furthermore, the findings suggest risk judgments for combined hazards do not vary according to hazard domain but, rather, according to the hazard characteristics. Importantly, the research also identifies both (a) a valid method of assessing peoples’ risk judgments for combined hazards, and (b) risk communications contents that can lead to significant improvement in individuals’ understanding of synergistic risks

Despite the growing interest of scholars, research on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and the role of the subsidiaries of foreign multinational companies (MNCs) in the context of developing countries is scant. This research identifies the relevant concerns and knowledge gap in the literature, particularly, the lack of understanding of the behaviour of the subsidiaries of MNCs‟ in the context of developing countries. To address this knowledge gap this research examines the CSR of the subsidiaries of foreign MNCs in the context of a developing country (i.e. Pakistan). This research is embedded in an interpretive paradigm in which reality is subjective and social actors construct the social world. In addition, a framework is proposed that recognises the complexity of the social context within which MNCs operate, and the study presents a synthesis of interrelated theories and concepts to examine the CSR of MNCs in the context of Pakistan. Using the interpretive qualitative case study approach, empirical data were collected from different stakeholders of subsidiaries of foreign MNCs operating in Pakistan through semi-structured interviews and supplemented by annual CSR reports of MNCs. The findings highlight the usefulness of the framework and reveal that most of the MNCs operating in Pakistan are involved in philanthropic activities. These philanthropic CSR activities are the result of stakeholder legitimacy and urgency attributes. In addition, the weak legal institutional environment, the limited role of NGOs and the relatively strong social and cultural (particularly religious) institutional environment result in narrow CSR perceptions leading to mainly charity-based philanthropic activities. The findings of this research also suggest that MNCs integrate a global CSR orientation with local CSR expectations. There is however, only limited diffusion of a contemporary global CSR agenda due to the lack of systematic stakeholder engagement, lack of awareness about contemporary CSR issues, a lack of government power to implement laws, and a lack of interest of the parent companies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs). This research fills the gaps in literature through the proposed framework of the study and empirical evidence collected from a developing country context. In addition, this research suggests future research options and offers suggestions for managers of MNCs, representatives of NGOs and regulatory authorities.