Risk culture assessment of a financial services organisation

Abstract

Academic interest in the topic of organisational culture and its effects on management practice has increased dramatically since the 2008 financial crisis, following which risk culture was identified as a key contributor to bank collapses and losses (Power et al., 2013) The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has issued guidelines in 2014 to assess risk culture for financial services on the premise that, while risk cultures vary across financial institutions, there are common foundational elements which are indicative of a sound risk culture. The current literature on risk culture does not include a specific method of assessing risk culture. This study used a pilot study, the 2016 Risk Culture Questionnaire developed by the North-West University Centre for Applied Risk Management, to assess the risk culture maturity of a financial services organisation. We incorporated the FSB guidelines into the online questionnaire by means of additional banking related items. The sample mainly comprised risk practitioners, with a few participants from business. We received 63 useable responses from 133 (47%) potential participants approached, 88% of which were from risk practitioners. The sample was divided into managers and non-managers. The results showed that risk management was perceived to be highly integrated within the case study organisation, but significant statistical differences between management and non-management levels emerged for risk understanding, which was one of the risk culture sub-factors identified. Initial opportunities for improvement of risk management awareness were identified to guide the organisation