The temporal dynamics of enterprise risk management

Abstract

Previous literature has suggested that temporality is an important component of enterprise risk management (ERM). Studies have focused attention on single instruments or processes, such as budgets, forecasts, risk maps, or risk silos, and the ways these shape the time horizons of organizational actors. Yet, we still know relatively little about the role of time in shaping the “dynamics of (dis)integrated risk management” (Arena, Arnaboldi & Palermo, 2017). To explore the notion of temporality and its role in shaping the contours of ERM, we investigated a Brazilian sugar-ethanol conglomerate (Group) and its use of ERM during a period of change and accelerated expansion between 2008 and 2015. To better understand how different temporalities were embedded and performed in ERM arrangements across Group, we draw upon the works of social theorist Theodore Schatzki (2002, 2010) as well as literature in accounting. In examining ERM through a temporal lens, this paper makes two contributions. First, we complement previous studies on the everyday practices underlying enterprise risk management by focusing on how temporality shapes the trajectories and limits of ERM practice. Second, we contribute to research interested in exploring how temporality shapes the situated functionality of accounting (Ahrens & Chapman, 2007) by highlighting how multiple representations of the past, present, and future are simultaneously implicated in risk management practice across organizational sites. Overall, our findings suggest that without a clear understanding of how different and sometimes conflicting time-horizons shape particular practices of risk management, it is rather difficult to assess whether ERM can become sensitive to longer-term risks.