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The Timid Corporation: Why Business Is Terrified of Taking Risk
John Wiley and Sons Ltd (
14 March, 2003 )
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Up-to-the-minute analysis with a powerful message  |
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We all know that "corporate governance", "regulation", "shareholder value", "economic value added" and "risk management" are amongst those dull but important terms that anyone involved in business should be interested in. But too often our eyes just glaze over. If so, then this is the book for you. Benjamin Hunt combines a journalists flair with an academics rigour to bring these things to life, arguing persuasively that the modern company is failing in its principal purpose - to take risk in the interests of creating new products and new markets. In short, he believes that business has lost its way. Hunt is an expert on risk management - a subject he has made his own by writing on it for a variety of publications, and this book benefits from a year-long trek around the worlds financial markets gathering primary data. He sets risk management in a wider context making the necessary connections with sociology, economics, technology and management theory. His fundamental theme is that capitalist societys confidence in experiment and progress has evaporated and companies mirror that loss of belief. Innovation has been dumbed-down, the notion of growth has become defensive, self-regulation is a dead hand and entrepreneurialism is being reined in. Employees are frustrated and under-perform, caught in a web of ethics and risk management. What is striking about this theme is that it is not one your average management consultant espouses, because it does not lead to fat fees. Hunt argues that we need to look more critically at the role of regulation. We behave now as if the world is riskier and more out-of-control, and people are more unethical. In fact, there are fewer uncertainties in the world (even though it never seems so at the time) and the morality of society has improved, not deteriorated. Tolerance of unethical behaviour has declined. Yet we are beset by irrational caution and restraint. It is a refreshing theme and one that Hunt carries with a a vibrant mix of quotes, references and observations, making connections as he proceeds. Its also a quick read - one to shove in a CEOs briefcase as he or she leaves for the airport, one that may remind them of what theyre actually supposed to be doing to merit those fancy remuneration packages.
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A very interesting read |
The author has certainly made business risk a more interesting read. I found the book most compelling.If you need to read about risk, then you need to read this book. Thank you.
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