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Mastering Catastrophic Risk is a profound and insightful look at how company leaders prepare for and respond to shocks and crises that threaten their businesses' operations, reputations, and even existence. This updated paperback edition includes a new preface to address threats to business that have emerged or intensified in the past two years including COVID-19.
List of contents
- Prologue: On a Sunny Day
- Part I. A More Risky Era
- Chapter 1 Risk on the Agenda
- Chapter 2 Impact of Severe Events
- Part II. Enterprise Decisions for Managing Disruptions
- Chapter 3 From Intuitive to Deliberative Thinking
- Chapter 4 The Risk Analysis Cycle
- Chapter 5 Risk Management Praxis
- Part III. What Disrupted Companies Do
- Chapter 6 Crisis at Lufthansa and Deutsche Bank
- Chapter 7 From Reactive to Proactive Boardroom
- Chapter 8 Corporate Giving for Disaster Relief
- Part IV. Reaching Vital Stakeholders
- Chapter 9 Disclosing Threats
- Chapter 10 A Two-Edged Sword
- Chapter 11 Safeguarding Value
- Chapter 12 Managing Disruptions and a Checklist for Action
- Epilogue: On a Rainy Day
- Appendices
- About the Authors
- Acknowledgments
- References
About the author
Howard Kunreuther is the James G. Dinan Professor Emreitus of Decision Sciences and Public Policy and Co-Director of the Center for Risk Management and Decision Processes at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Michael Useem is the William and Jaclyn Egan Professor of Management and Director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Summary
A profound and insightful look at how company leaders prepare for and respond to shocks and crises that threaten their business.
Successful firms strategically manage and are more accurate in their assessment of large-scale risks. Doing so is increasingly challenging given the pace of change, whether financial, technological, regulatory, or environmental. Mastering Catastrophic Risk provides real-world practical insights into how large companies are responding to this new reality and develops a framework for smarter thinking about events that can damage a business.
As leading authorities on risk management, strategy, and company leadership, Howard Kunreuther and Michael Useem take us on a groundbreaking tour of firms' decision making process. They demonstrate how improving readiness for and resilience against future shocks is now an integral part of company strategy. Using the "DISRUPT" model they have developed, they highlight the seven primary Drivers of disruption: Interdependencies increase exposure; Short-term focus results in limited vision; Regulations require change and constrain opportunities; Urbanization increases the costs of disasters; Probabilities of disasters have increased; and Transparency has enhanced public awareness of problems and impacts on firms' reputations. This updated paperback edition includes a new preface to address threats to business that have emerged or intensified in the past two years including existential threats like the coronavirus, self-inflicted calamities like the Wells Fargo customer account scandal, and natural disasters like the West Coast wildfires and hurricanes on the Atlantic.
Some disruptions can be anticipated, while others arrive without warning. Their onset stresses decision makers, impairs company operations, and may even put the enterprise at risk. The bottom-line: business leaders and their governing boards face ever more challenging disruptions and must be ever more on guard. If your company is hit tomorrow, will it bounce back, or drown?
Additional text
This interesting book uses interviews and case studies from the business world to identify 21 categories of risk faced by publicly traded companies and to draw useful lessons about how to prepare for them." - Richard N. Cooper, Foreign Affairs
