The role of accounting in governing corporate risks: three essays

Abstract

Today we live in a world of great uncertainty and complexity dictated by geo-political issues (e.g. the so-called Brexit), cyber threats and terrorism, increasing regulatory expectations, calls for alternative energy sources, combined to a disruptive technological innovation never seen before. In addition, companies since the 2008 financial and economic crisis had to take into account risks emerging from wealth production by organizations and institutions which come to dominate public concern and policies. Worldwide a number of corporate governance-focused entities have issued calls for effective risk management processes within organizations including the introduction of specific corporate governance bodies and risk-related disclosure. Accounting literature dealing about risk and its government generally focuses on corporate governance’s characteristics and monitoring mechanisms which are often supported to act as driving elements of risk-related aspects. Nevertheless, different kinds of relations and their directions between risk, accounting, and governance dimensions have not been taken into consideration yet. This thesis aims to fill the gap providing a broader view of the risk dimension than that considered by the traditional approach predominantly employed in accounting studies. The thesis therefore contributes to the recent debate about risk government being enriched by different methodological approaches (either interpretative/critical qualitative and quantitative) and the focus on different settings. As the world is rapidly becoming a complex and uncertain environment, more studies should be undertaken about risk government, thus contributing to the advancement of knowledge in accounting studies and presenting relevant policy and managerial implications.