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  • Winter 2015
  • Article
  • Journal of Applied Corporate Finance

When One Size Doesn't Fit All: Evolving Directions in the Research and Practice of Enterprise Risk Management

By: Anette Mikes and Robert S. Kaplan
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Abstract

Enterprise risk management (ERM) has become a crucial component of contemporary corporate governance reforms, with an abundance of principles, guidelines, and standards. This paper portrays ERM as an evolving discipline and presents empirical findings on its current state of maturity, as evidenced by a survey of the academic literature and by our own field research. Academics are increasingly examining the adoption and impact of ERM, but the studies are inconsistent and inconclusive, due, we believe, to an inadequate specification of how ERM is used in practice. Based on a ten-year field project, over 250 interviews with senior risk officers, and three detailed case studies, we put forward a contingency theory of ERM, identifying potential design parameters that can explain observable variation in the "ERM mix" adopted by organizations. We also add a new contingent variable: the type of risk that a specific ERM practice addresses. We outline a "minimum necessary contingency framework" (Otley, 1980) that is sufficiently nuanced, while still empirically observable, that empirical researchers may, in due course, hypothesize about "fit" between contingent variables, such as risk types and the ERM mix, as well as about outcomes such as organizational effectiveness.

Keywords

Contingency Theory; Grounded Research; Risk Management; Customization and Personalization

Citation

Mikes, Anette, and Robert S. Kaplan. "When One Size Doesn't Fit All: Evolving Directions in the Research and Practice of Enterprise Risk Management." Journal of Applied Corporate Finance 27, no. 1 (Winter 2015): 37–40.
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About The Author

Robert S. Kaplan

Accounting and Management
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • October 2023
    • Medical Care

    Health System Perspective on Cost for Delivering a Decision Aid for Prostate Cancer Using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing

    By: David R. Ho, Robert S. Kaplan, Jonathan Bergman, David F. Penson, Benjamin Waterman, Kristin C. Williams, Jefersson Villatoro, Lorna Kwan and Christopher S. Saigal
    • September–October 2023
    • Journal of Breast Imaging

    Prospective Evaluation of the Cost of Performing Breast Imaging Examinations Using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing Method: A Single Center Study

    By: Aamir Ali, Jordana Phillips, Damir Ljuboja, Syed S. Shehab, Etta D. Pisano, Robert S. Kaplan and Ammar Sarwar
    • August 2023
    • Faculty Research

    Vanderbilt: Transforming an Academic Health Care Delivery System, 2020

    By: Michael E. Porter, Robert S. Kaplan, Mary L. Witkowski and David N. Bernstein
More from the Authors
  • Health System Perspective on Cost for Delivering a Decision Aid for Prostate Cancer Using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing By: David R. Ho, Robert S. Kaplan, Jonathan Bergman, David F. Penson, Benjamin Waterman, Kristin C. Williams, Jefersson Villatoro, Lorna Kwan and Christopher S. Saigal
  • Prospective Evaluation of the Cost of Performing Breast Imaging Examinations Using Time-Driven Activity-Based Costing Method: A Single Center Study By: Aamir Ali, Jordana Phillips, Damir Ljuboja, Syed S. Shehab, Etta D. Pisano, Robert S. Kaplan and Ammar Sarwar
  • Vanderbilt: Transforming an Academic Health Care Delivery System, 2020 By: Michael E. Porter, Robert S. Kaplan, Mary L. Witkowski and David N. Bernstein
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