Adopting Enterprise Risk Management in Today's World

Organizations are under increased pressure to manage risks. Traditionally, risk management responsibility has been delegated to individual operating units. This approach lacks an overarching strategy for managing risks and is being supplanted by an approach gaining favor in board rooms for strategically managing risks now termed enterprise risk management (ERM). As a senior leadership led initiative, ERM provides a comprehensive strategy for managing risks. However, existing ERM models often lack guidance for implementing ERM in complex organizational settings. This book examines why organizations adopt an ERM strategy and how critical success factors influence its implementation. The findings in this book are based on a review of the theoretical literature on change management, decision making, and organizational learning and a systematic review of current research on ERM. Best practices discussed in the book include approaches for adopting enterprise risk management to improve organizational performance, clarifying its purpose, reflecting the culture of the organization in its design, assigning a program champion and cross-functional implementation team, assigning risk assessment methodologies based on the type of risk, and using an ERM approach to build organizational learning and resiliency.