Research Project Proposals

Management & Security

Title: Exploring accounting and accountability in times of crisis: a COVID-19 angle

Proposer(s): Giulia Leoni & Francesco Avallone

Curriculum: Management & Security

Description:

The recent outbreak of the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) pandemic has generated a global human emergency that primarily concerns health safety. At the same time, the extreme measures to slow down deaths and contaminations are having a significant impact on aspects of social, environmental and economic life worldwide.

To date, the implications of large-scale global crises for organizations and society have remained mostly unexamined in accounting, management, and related disciplines. Contributions do exist on the role played by accounting in time of financial crisis (for example, Barbera et al. 2020, Bracci et al., 2015; Chabrak and Gendron, 2015). Recent research has started to research the impacts of extreme events on organisations and their decision-making (Sargiacomo, 2015; Lai et al., 2014; Sargaicomo, 2014; Wilson et al., 2010), and found that their interventions are mostly reactive, rather than anticipatory.

In this severe global crisis, accounting and accountability practices can play a central role in leading governmental and non-governmental organisations’ policies; in sustaining public services, businesses and non-for-profit organisations; as well as the state of human condition.

On the one hand, while there is no solid knowledge of the virus as yet, numbers, rankings and calculative practices have supported so far, the decision-making of governments, institutions and organisations worldwide. Accounting and calculative practices provide a basis of knowledge for scientists to build initial rationales and a sort of control on the pandemic and its global spread.

On the other hand, facing an unprecedented situation and having difficulties in understanding what is going on, people turn to numbers, calculations, statistics to make sense of their new co-existence with the virus, and the risks for their health and economic well-being. At the same time, numbers and calculations of the pandemic are used to support and justify the tough and restrictive measures that have been imposed on people around the globe.

This research programme aims to explore how this pandemic is affected and may affect the practice of accounting and management and the need for accountability at a global level in times of crisis. The investigations within the programme aim at extending our knowledge of accounting and accountability in times of health and safety emergencies, as well as growing our understanding about the implications that global crisis and their response may have on accounting, management and accountability practices. The findings from the research programme will provide insights on emergency responses across cultures and political systems and have practical implications as far as policies and emergency plan programmes are involved.

Research questions and topics may include, but are not limited to:

  • What is the role of accounting and accountability in a pandemic emergency?

  • How may pandemics change organizations’ accountabilities to multiple stakeholders?

  • How can processes of auditing, accounting, and accountability help organizations managing disruption, shortage, and discontinuity? How can accounting data and management systems be adapted to better anticipate and solve scarcities of various kinds?

  • How do organizations (including governments) deploy data and evidence to articulate how they understand, justify, and informed choices concerning stakeholders and their organizational objectives?

  • How is the nature of accountability and responsibility changing during and after a pandemic, for individuals, organizations, regions, and nation-states?

  • The rhetorical and linguistic dimensions of accounting in times of a pandemic.

  • The relationships between (and impacts of) accounting, accountability, and social media in a pandemic setting.

  • What is the role of accounting and embedding numbers and calculations in other professions (e.g. medical professions) in facing the pandemic?

  • The puzzle of transforming infected and dead people into numbers for the sake of control and knowledge on the pandemic.

References:

  1. Barbera, C., Guarini, E. & Steccolini, I. (2020), "How do governments cope with austerity? The roles of accounting in shaping governmental financial resilience", Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Vol. 33 No. 3, pp. 529-558. https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-11-2018-3739

  2. Bracci, E., Humphrey, C., Moll, J. & Steccolini, I. (2015), “Public sector accounting, accountability and austerity: more than balancing the books?”, Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, Vol. 28 No. 6, pp. 878-908.

  3. Chabrak, N. & Gendron, Y. (2015), “Promoting research from the ‘periphery’: engaging critically with the global financial crisis”, Critical Perspectives on Accounting, Vol. 30 July, pp. 1-8.

  4. Wilson, D. C., Branicki, L., Sullivan-Taylor, B., & Wilson, A. D. (2010). Extreme events, organizations and the politics of strategic decision making. Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal, 23(5), 699–721.

  5. Lai, A., Leoni, G., & Stacchezzini, R. (2014). The socializing effects of accounting in flood recovery. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 25(7), 579-603.

  6. Sargiacomo, M. (2014). Accounting for natural disasters & humanitarian interventions. Critical Perspectives on Accounting, 25(7), 576-578.

  7. Sargiacomo, M. (2015). Earthquakes, exceptional government and extraordinary accounting. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 42, 67-89.

Title: Investigating financial scandals and accounting frauds

Proposer(s): Alberto Quagli and Paola Ramassa

Curriculum: Management & Security

Description:

Despite growing regulation and the array of control devices, the continuous flow of accounting scandals and fraud represents a critical issue in the financial reporting environment, with serious consequences for the continuity of firms and their stakeholders. This phenomenon does not produce effects only for managers and controllers but can have a dramatic societal impact on employees, investors, even beyond the company responsible for misreporting. The series of accounting scandals and frauds occurred in Europe and worldwide raises a number of questions about the extent of controllability surrounding such events, which are supposed to be prevented by several internal and external controls (e.g. corporate governance mechanisms, auditors, enforcers).

This research program aims to provide a better understanding of the practice of accounting scandals and frauds, and also to explore the various shades of grey between aggressive accounting and misreporting. The findings will contribute to the vast literature on fraud and accounting scandals, which adopts a variety of theoretical perspectives and approaches. Therefore, research projects in this area can be based on qualitative or quantitative methods, which allow exploring such phenomenon from different viewpoints. In particular, in-depth case studies covering adequate time horizons can address the complexity of misreporting and unveil its features as well as connections with other phenomena.

Research questions can relate to several aspects of accounting misreporting and fraud, such as its different phases (e.g. genesis, concealment, discovery, reactions), deficiencies in internal and external controls, and tools for fraud prevention and detection. Research projects in this program are expected to contribute to existing literature not only from a theoretical point of view but also in terms of practical and/or policy implications.

The Department of Economics and Business Studies of the University of Genoa (DIEC) is hosting an international workshop on fraud and accounting scandals in March, 2021. This event will be an excellent opportunity to attend presentations of research on this topic and get in touch with international scholars working in this area.

More information available at: https://www.eiasm.org/frontoffice/event_announcement.asp?event_id=1489%20

References:

  1. Gabbioneta, C., Greenwood, R., Mazzola, P., & Minoja, M. (2013). The influence of the institutional context on corporate illegality. Accounting, Organizations and Society, 38(6-7), 484-504.

  2. Jorissen, A., Otley, D. (2010). The management of accounting numbers: Case study evidence from the ‘crash’of an airline. Accounting and business research, 40(1), 3-38.

  3. Mulford, C. W., Comiskey, E. E. (2005). The financial numbers game: detecting creative accounting practices. John Wiley & Sons.

  4. Power, M. (1997). The audit society: Rituals of verification. OUP Oxford.

  5. Quagli, A., Ramassa, P. (2018). L'enforcement dell'informativa contabile. G Giappichelli Editore.

Title: Occupational safety and work conditions

Proposer(s): Teresina Torre, Angelo Gasparre, Lorenzo Mizzau

Curriculum: Management & Security

Description:

The field of occupational safety is concerned with the protection of people in workplace,. It is an ethical question, because it stats from a value declaration on human dignity; it is a personal question in relationship with health and well-being; but it is also an organizational one, because safety depends also on how context and environment are organized so to prevent problems ant to create proper conditions for its maintenance. In this perspective, a specific role is played by organizational design; which has to be developed into organization with a specific regard towards this topic.

The proposal wish to examine the meaningof safety,its conditions with regard to the different involved organizational levels and its content as a perfectible process, aiming to propose outlined pathways of work analysis that actually carry out primary prevention. Also implications for individual attitude towards specific jobs and effets on jib satisfaction are worthy of analysis.

References:

  1. Rulli G., Maggi B., 2018, Well-being, Prevention, Risk / Benessere, Prevenzione, Rischio / Bien-être, Prévention, Risque / Bienestar, Prevención, Riesgo / Bem-estar, Prevenção, Risco / Wohlbefinden, Vorbeugung, Risiko, http://amsacta.cib.unibo.it, Bologna: TAO Digital Library. ISBN: 978-88-98626-14-4 DOI: http://doi.org/10.6092/unibo/amsacta/6027

  2. Torre, T. and Sarti, D., 2019. The Effect of ICT Usage on Employees’ Satisfaction: A Job Characteristics Perspective. In ICT for a Better Life and a Better World (pp. 99-113). Springer, Cham.

  3. Sarti, D., Torre, T. and Pirani, E., 2020. Information and Communication Technologies Usage for Professional Purposes, Work Changes and Job Satisfaction. Some Insights from Europe. In Exploring Digital Ecosystems (pp. 165-177). Springer, Cham.

Title: Digitization, cyber-security and organizational action

Proposer(s): Angelo Gasparre, Teresina Torre, Lorenzo Mizzau

Curriculum: Management & Security

Description:

The adoption of means of cyber security has several implications from an organizational standpoint, including change in internal and external communication – among organizational members and units, and toward the many organizational business partners that are located along the value chain. More elements lie at the design level of action aimed at protection within the organizational structure, concerning the allocation of responsibilities to line and staff units and the market or partnership relations to the external providers of protection services. Also, the adoption of codes and procedures for protection may alter routines and impact flexibility and responsiveness of organizational action. The effectiveness of protection depends on many organizational variables such as culture and perception that affects the actual behavior of agents, beyond the formal adoption of codes and procedures of protection from cyber risks. Organizational culture may either enable the adoption of effective codes of conduct or derail projects and efforts to protect the organizational facilities and actions as even the notion of “acceptable risk” is culturally rooted, with all that derives.

Title: Entrepreneurship and Safe & Secure environment

Proposer(s): Lara Penco

Curriculum: Management & Security

Description:

Researches focused on entrepreneurship and territory (Country, Regional, Urban) have demonstrated that a more attractive environment helps to stimulate knowledge-based activities that drive economic development and to retain and attract knowledge worker. This research stream aims to investigate if a safe and secure environment stimulates entrepreneurship and which dimensions of the ‘Safety and Security’ domain is more important for the entrepreneurship (or the entrepreneurial attitude), defined especially in terms of new and digital ventures. In particular, ‘Safety and security’ can be referred to the topic of doing business (rules, economic supports, financial strength of the system), or to the topic of quality of life of citizen/entrepreneur that attracts the most talented persons (creative people). This research stream present important relationship with the Accounting domain (e.g. financial frauds) and with the Organisation domain (e.g. organisational action for safe and security).

References:

  1. Acs, Z. J., Braunerhjelm, P., Audretsch, D. B., & Carlsson, B. (2009). The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship. Small business economics, 32(1), 15-30.

  2. Adler, P., Florida, R., King, K., & Mellander, C. (2019). The city and high-tech startups: The spatial organization of Schumpeterian entrepreneurship. Cities, 87, 121-130.

  3. Andersson, S., 2011. International entrepreneurship, born globals and the theory of effectuation. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development 18(3), 627-643.

  4. Ardito, L., Ferraris, A., Petruzzelli, A. M., Bresciani, S., Del Giudice M., 2018. The role of universities in the knowledge management of smart city projects. Technological Forecasting and Social Change in press https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2018.07.030

  5. Audretsch, D. B. (2003). Innovation and spatial externalities. International Regional Science Review, 26(2), 167-174.

  6. Audretsch, D.B., Belitski, M., 2017. Entrepreneurial ecosystems in cities: establishing the framework conditions. The Journal of Technology Transfer 42(5), 1030-1051.

  7. Audretsch, D.B., Belitski, M., Desai, S., 2015. Entrepreneurship and economic development in cities. The Annals of Regional Science 55(1), 33-60.

  8. Audretsch, D.B., Fritsch, M., 2002. Growth regimes over time and space. Regional Studies 36(2), 113-124.

  9. Florida, R., 2002. The economic geography of talent. Annals of the Association of American geographers. 92(4): 743-755.

  10. Florida, R., Mellander, C., Stolarick, K., 2008. Inside the black box of regional development—human capital, the creative class and tolerance. Journal of economic geography. 8(5), 615-649.

  11. Ivaldi, E., Penco, L., Isola, G., & Musso, E. (2020). Smart Sustainable Cities and the Urban Knowledge-Based Economy: A NUTS3 Level Analysis. Social Indicators Research, 1-28.

  12. Penco, L., Ivaldi, E., Bruzzi, C., & Musso, E. (2020). Knowledge-based urban environments and entrepreneurship: Inside EU cities. Cities, 96, 102443.

  13. Wiklund, J., & Shepherd, D. (2005). Entrepreneurial orientation and small business performance: a configurational approach. Journal of business venturing, 20(1), 71-91.

  14. Yigitcanlar, T., 2011. Position paper: Redefining knowledge-based urban development. International Journal of Knowledge Based Development 2(4), 340–356.

Title: Crisis management and communication

Proposer(s): Lara Penco & Giorgia Profumo

Curriculum: Management & Security

Description:

In recent years, critical events have heavily affected the industry. When a critical event occurs, managers tend to perform managerial actions and to introduce specific strategies and communication policies, aiming to protect the company. In terms of strategy, some critical events are so serious that turnaround and recovery strategies must be formulated and implemented in order to create the condition for the future firm’s survival. Moreover, a critical event generates a legitimacy problem since during a crisis people make judgments about the causes of critical events, especially those that are unexpected and have negative outcomes. The impact of a critical event is also related to prior corporate reputation and a good brand corporate image and a high level of loyalty could have a positive impact on consumers’ purchase intentions after a critical event, such as a product recall.

This research stream aims to analyse the relationship of these strategic and communication profiles with the firm’s performance, identifying which actions are most relevant for the firm’s survival and recovery. The relationship with the Accounting domain is evident (e.g. performance measurement, financial reporting, investor relations).

References:

  1. Cho, C.H. (2009), “Legitimation strategies used in response to environmental disaster: A French case study of total SA’s Erika and AZF incidents”, European Accounting Review, Vol. 18 No. 1, pp. 33–62.

  2. Clarke, C. J., & Varma, S. (1999). Strategic risk management: the new competitive edge. Long range planning, 32(4), 414-424.

  3. Cleeren, K., Dekimpe, M.G. and Helsen, K. (2008), “Weathering product-harm crises”, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Vol. 36 No. 2, pp. 262–270.

  4. Coombs, W.T. (2004), “Impact of past crises on current crisis communication: Insights from situational crisis communication theory”, The Journal of Business Communication, Vol. 41 No.3, pp. 265–289.

  5. Coombs, W.T. (2014), “Crisis communication and social media communication”, Essential Knowledge Project, Institute for Public Relations, available at: https://instituteforpr.org/crisis-management-communications/ (accessed August 2018).

  6. Coombs, W.T., and Holladay, S.J. (2002), “Helping crisis managers protect reputational assets: Initial Tests of the Situational Crisis Communication Theory”, Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 16 No. 2, pp. 165–186.

  7. Ferretti, M., Profumo, G. and Tutore, I. (2015), “Shock events and corporate announcements”, Journal of Communication Management, Vol. 19 No. 1, 81–101.

  8. Penco, L., Profumo, G., & Remondino, M. (2018). Negative Events and Corporate Communication Strategies in the Cruise Industry. International Journal of Transport Economics, 45(3).

  9. Penco, L., Profumo, G., Remondino, M., & Bruzzi, C. (2019). Critical events in the tourism industry: factors affecting the future intention to take a cruise. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.

  10. Remondino, M., Penco, L., & Profumo, G. (2019). Negative events in the Cruise tourism industry: the role of Corporate responsibility and reputation in information diffusion Tourism in Marine Environments, 14(1-2), 61-87.

  11. Siomkos, G.J. (1999), “On achieving exoneration after a product safety industrial crisis”, Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 14 No. 1, pp. 17–29.

  12. Siomkos, G.J., and Kurzbard, G. (1994), “The hidden crisis in product-harm crisis management”, European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 28 No. 2, pp. 30–41.

  13. Souiden, N., and Pons, F. (2009), “Product recall crisis management: The impact on manufacturer’s image, consumer loyalty and purchase intention”, Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 18 No. 2, pp. 106–114.

Title: Supply Chain Security Strategy and Enabling Technologies in Time of Uncertainty: towards a New Supply Chain Model

Proposer(s): Silvia Bruzzi

Curriculum: Management & Security

Description:

The global and interlinked nature of supply chains made them increasingly vulnerable to a variety of risks – in primis biological, natural and terrorist risks – that can profoundly affect business operations and the economy worldwide. Covid 19 is the more recent wake-up call to the uncertainty of this global environment. The events of 11 September 2001 had already highlighted that supply chains were at a greater risk than thought and had brought to light that a supply chain security strategy is an essential part of corporate strategy.

The Covid 19 pandemic has a wider impact than the past events. Never in modern times has one event had such a wide effect on the world. It has revealed that the global supply chains disruption caused by external shocks can stop production activity worldwide and bring the global economy to a deep recession. Compared to 2008, the global economy was affected in a time of particular weakness, with trade turned into an instrument for nationalist rivalry. Concerning Europe, the level of European investment, despite increasing, in 2018 was still below (-5%) the pre-crisis level (2007). Covid 19 pandemic spread across the world at an unprecedented speed and the containment measures taken at the level of single countries have had a very limited effect. That is why the virus has impacted on all economies worldwide. Vulnerability has therefore shown its global dimension.

According to the literature, which still has many gaps concerning this issue, the vulnerability of supply chain is one of the challenges to be managed (along with value, visibility velocity and variability). It exists in a variety of forms, which are linked to a variety of events that can provoke the disruption of the supply chains: infection or infestation of products with biochemical agents at any point of the SC, cyber-attacks, damages or destructions of the SC infrastructure (e.g. transportation equipment, storage facilities, information processing systems). This is what was experienced with Covid-19 pandemic, when borders, factories and retailers were closed, and transports and personal mobility were limited. Moreover, the recent focus on supply chain optimization to minimize costs and stocks and to reduce working capital has reduced supply chain flexibility and the ability to absorb delays and disruptions.

With Covid-19 crisis, some already known risks amplified and new ones emerged. This means that the supply chains vulnerability increases and supply chain security must become the primary focus of companies’ strategies and institutions’ policies to foster the resiliency of the economic systems.

Enhancing end-to-end supply chain visibility is one of the keys to manage supply chains vulnerability. Companies should have enough visibility across the extended supply network to see their risks, drive specific actions based on a clear set of priorities (diversification of tier 1 and 2 suppliers, additional capacity and inventory, etc.). To this end, the adoption of enabling technologies can contribute to illuminate the supply chains, bring out criticalities and enhance agility and resilience. Enabling technologies can transform traditional supply chains in digital supply networks where all the participants are interconnected so that disruptions can be anticipated and the supply network can be redesigned to mitigate the impacts.

Coronavirus pandemic emergency showed that companies with enabling technologies already implemented were able to react to this external shock: intelligent machinery allowed to quickly convert production, ensuring business continuity; robotics allowed to carry out many actions automatically or remotely in many fields other than production and logistics, such as cleaning, sanitizing, service and surveillance operations; IoT solutions in many factories and plants allowed cooperative operations and remote control; with 3D printing spare parts that cannot be provided by the disrupted supply chain could be quickly produced; augmented reality systems enabled the real-time use of expertise anywhere to support on-site personnel.

Enabling technologies for many companies have played a key role in alleviating the impact of Covid-19 lock-down and are expected to play an even greater role in the near future.

In this perspective this crisis can become an accelerator of already ongoing transformations.

In this framework the objective of this research is twofold: 1) to investigate the relationship between vulnerability and enabling technologies, to understand if enabling technologies can become part of the security supply chain strategy, and, 2) to understand if new supply chain models, where new digital approaches are enhanced, can be developed to foster supply chain resilience and security.

To this end, the research will be developed through:

  1. a review of the literature, including academic publications, white papers and consultancy firms reports, on supply chain security&vulnerability and enabling technologies, also focusing on the role that institutions can play to support the enhancement of security;

  2. the study of selected best practices in the field of enabling technologies pre, during and post-Covid 19 emergency to investigate if enabling technologies foster visibility and reduce vulnerability;

  3. the definition of a set of criteria/requirements for the development of a new more resilient and less vulnerable supply chain model.

References:

  1. Autry C.W. and LM Bobbitt (2008), “Suppy chain security orientation: conceptual development and a proposed framework”, The International Journal of Logistics Management, Vol. 19, no. 1, pp. 42-46

  2. Bajpai K. (2003), “The idea of human security”, International Studies, Vol. 40, no. 3, pp. 195-228.

  3. Barry J. (2004), “Supply Chain Risk in an uncertain global supply chain environment”, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. 34, no. 9, pp. 695-7.

  4. Closs D.J., E.F. McGarrell (2004), Enhancing Security Throughout the Supply Chain, Special Report Series, IBM Center for the Business of Government, April 2004.

  5. CHRISTOPHER M. (2000), “The Agile Supply chain: Competing in Volatile Markets”, Industrial Marketing Management, vol. 29, n. 1, January, pp. 37-44.

  6. CHRISTOPHER M., D.R. TOWILL (2000), “Supply chain migration from lean and functional to agile and customised”, Supply Chain Management, vol. 5, n. 4, pp. 206-213.

  7. Christopher M. and H. Peck (2004), “Building the resilient supply chain”, International Journal of Logistics Management, Vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 277-87.

  8. Deloitte (2020), Covid-19: Mapping supply chain risk and disruption, 2020, available at https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/risk/articles/covid-19-managing-supply-chain-risk-and-disruption.html

  9. Deloitte (2018a), Italia 4.0: siamo pronti? Il percepito degli executive in merito agli impatti economici, tecnologici e sociali delle nuove tecnologie, available from https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/it/Documents/process-and-operations/Report%20Italia%204.0%20siamo%20pronti_Deloitte%20Italy.pdf

  10. European Commission (2009), Preparing for our future: Developing a common strategy for key enabling technologies in the EU. Current situation of key enabling technologies in Europe, Commission Staff Working Document accompanying the Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, Brussels, 30.09.2009 SEC(2009) 1257 final, available from https://www.researchitaly.it/uploads/477/staff_working_document_sec512_key_enabling_technologies_en.pdf

  11. European Commission (2018), EU Budget for the Future, 2018, disponibile all’indirizzo https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/budget-june2018-what-is-investeu_it.pdf

  12. Giunipero L.C. and R.A. Eltantaway (2004), “Securing the upstream supply chain: a risk management approach”, International Journal of Physical Distribution & Logistics Management, Vol. 34, no. 9, pp. 698-713.

  13. Peleg-Gillai B., G. Bhat, L. Sept (2006), “Innovators in supply chain security: better security drives business value”, The Manufacturing Innovations Series.

  14. Pfohl H.C., Y. Burak, K. Tamer (2015), The Impact of Industry 4.0 on the Supply chain, in W. Kersten, T. Blecker, C.M. Ringle (eds.), Innovations and Strategies for Logistics and Supply Chains. Technologies, Business Models and Risk Management, Proceedings of the Hamburg International Conference of Logistics (HICL), pp. 31-58.

  15. PWC (2020), Supply chain and third party resilience during COVID-19 disruption, available at https://www.pwc.com/jg/en/issues/covid-19/pwc-supply-chain-resilience.pdf.

  16. Rice J.B. Jr and P.W. Spayd (2005), Investing in Supply Chain Security: Collateral Benefits”, Special Report Series, IBM Center for the Business of Government.

  17. Rice J.B. and F. Caniato (2003), “Building a secure and resilient supply network”, Supply Chain Management Review, Vol. 7, no. 5, pp. 22-30.

  18. Williams Z., J.E. Lueg, S.A. LeMay (2008), “Supply Chain Security: an overview and research agenda”, The International Journal of Logistics Management, Vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 254-281.

  19. World Economic Forum, COVID-19 Risks OutlookA Preliminary Mapping and Its Implications, Insight Report, May 2020, available at http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_COVID_19_Risks_Outlook_Special_Edition_Pages.pdf.

Title: Enterprise Risk Management (ERM)

Proposer(s): Marco Di Antonio, Laura Nieri, Francesca Querci

Curriculum: Management & Security

Description:

  1. The context in which companies operate has become more and more complex, requiring increasing attention to aspects related to risk and control. Having a valid reference model for identifying, assessing and managing risks effectively has become increasingly relevant for firms. Business survival is ensured by its ability to create value for its stakeholders. All companies face uncertain events and management's challenge is to determine the amount of acceptable uncertainty to create value. Uncertainty represents both a risk and an opportunity and can potentially reduce or increase the enterprise value.

  2. Concerning financial intermediaries, the ability to manage risks is crucial, given the essential functions that these firms (particularly banks) play in the economic system. Indeed, sound and safe bank management ensures not only the steadiness of the individual intermediary and its counterparties, but also the stability of the financial system as a whole.

  3. Two directions are envisaged:

  4. 1. The ERM framework: risk governance and culture; risk, strategy and objectives (setting); risk in execution; risk information, communication & reporting; monitoring risk management performance.

  5. A particular focus will be on financial intermediaries (banks, specifically), learning from their significant experience in the risk management field.

  6. 2. Banking risks.

  7. In this area, we will concentrate on specific risks that characterize banking activity and have become more and more relevant for ensuring a sound and safe bank management, as well as the financial sector stability:

  8. * Credit risk;

  9. * Liquidity risk;

  10. * Strategic and business risk.

References:

  1. CoSo (2017), Enterprise Risk Management-Integrating with Strategy and Performance.

  2. Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (2019), The Basel framework, www.bis.org/basel_framework/index.htm.