Rewards of a Voluntary Risk Management Committee: Is it Fact or Fiction?
In the years following the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, corporations have heightened their efforts to comprehensively manage all aspect of business risk that could jeopardize their operations or potentially lead to business failure. This increase in efforts have motivated firms to adopt additional preventative measures to internally manage their unique portfolios of impeding enterprise risk. Due to legislative efforts by the U.S. Congress, both the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank) and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) were broadly developed to improve corporate governance while increasing transparency within financial reporting. Specifically, Dodd-Frank mandates that large financial firms with $50 billion in assets establish special committees dedicated to assessing their financial risks. Meanwhile, SOX requires all public firms to establish rigorous internal control systems to ensure the adequacy of financial reporting. However, these laws mainly target financial firms and fall short of requiring nonfinancial firms to establish a separate committee to manage corporate risk even though it would be in these companies own interest to enhance their safeguarding efforts against ambiguous financial uncertainties, reputation downshifts, and other inherent risk. This dissertation seeks to understand whether a separate voluntary risk management committee at the board level is related to the financial stability and creditworthiness of nonfinancial firms. Firstly, we investigated whether the existence of a separate risk management committee is associated with the firm’s leverage, solvency, financial health, and organizational soundness. Secondly, we examined whether the existence of a separate risk management committee is associated with the firm’s short- and long-term credit ratings. Using secondary data from Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS), we analyzed data from a wide range of financial ratios and credit ratings from companies listed on the S&P 1500 index to evaluate if these committees have an association with the firm’s ability to manage its risk effectively. Regression analysis was utilized to explore this relationship. Although the direction of the relationship cannot be determined, the results suggest that the establishment of a separate voluntary risk management committee was minimally related to the financial soundness of the firm and was not related to the firm's leverage, solvency, or overall organizational soundness. Inferences or causality cannot be made. Additionally, we found that firms with better short-term credit ratings were more likely to establish a voluntary risk management committee, while long-term credit ratings did not show a correlation with the presence of a voluntary risk management committee. Interestingly, the study also found that the presence of more men on the board and a larger board size increased the likelihood of firms adopting a risk management committee, but over time, the interest in forming these committees has declined within the timeframe reviewed, particularly in the healthcare, communication, and utilities sectors. The results of this study suggest that relying on traditional financial/accounting ratios might not be the most effective method for assessing a firm's risk. Further, these results underscore the need for a more comprehensive approach that includes both quantitative and qualitative risk assessments and approaches. This dissertation contributes to the benefits of establishing a voluntary risk management committee in nonfinancial firms, which is a topic that has not been extensively researched. The aim is to offer a deeper insight into the benefits of such committees and encourage more firms to improve their risk management practices where positive correlations were identified.
Business administration, Management, Organization theory, Accounting ratios, Credit risk, Dodd-Frank Act, Financial risk ratios, Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX), Voluntary risk management committee
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