Risk Culture and Effective Risk Governance

Risk culture and safety cultures are a central issue for firms within all industries, with high profile cases of excessive risk taking or the bad behaviour of employees in many different sectors making headlines. In financial services this is one of the factors behind the crisis, but has also surfaced even more damagingly post-crisis in the form of conduct scandals such as LIBOR and various mis-selling cases.

Those controlling firms should be asking themselves how they can develop, instil and measure risk culture. Expectations from investors and, for the appropriate sectors, from regulators, have ratcheted up. With regard to the financial services, the FSB has issued a range of papers emphasising the changes they expect to see. The PRA in the UK has made clear that they expect culture to support the prudent management of all banks and insurers and are planning to use new tools to enforce this.

Patricia Jackson has assembled an all-star cast of contributors to examine the different factors which will influence an effective risk culture. There are many different aspects of risk culture which are covered, from an embedded risk appetite, values, and leadership from the top, through to incentives, accountability, and risk transparency, all of which need to come together to ensure a strong culture.

Risk Culture and Effective Risk Governance uses many examples from different industries, such as financial services, transport, oil and gas, and the NHS, to illustrate the various arguments. Patricia has written an introduction which consolidates and clarifies the central themes, examining why risk cultures fail and the lessons to be learnt from different industries regarding a way forward. The regulatory viewpoint for financial services is reflected in four chapters written by senior regulators from different countries.