In a world of perfect markets, primary insurers could hedge catastrophic risks using financial instruments. In practice however, most primary insurers deal with catastrophic risk by the use of a financial intermediary - a reinsurer. This paper uses insights gained from the institutional...

Taking into account the actual economic situation of the world with numerous financial crisis, the insurance companies should control their financial stability in order to avoid the insolvency or even bankruptcy state. Thus, the insurers should find the adequate methods of substantiating the...

This paper examines the role of budgeting and decision tools in the strategizing and decision processes and their effect on future routines of the firm. It argues that some conditions must be fulfilled by the decision tools to facilitate the change of the firm routines. The reflection is...

In most countries of the developing world such as India, Korea, and Thailand, business groups (or business houses) dominate the industrial scenario. We studied the linkage between financial performance and corporate characteristics (including their product diversity) of 240 large Indian business...

I have worked for many years as senior consultant and advisor for the majority of European Pulpamp;Paper companies, the majority of Nordic Packaging and Nuclear companies and other industries, and have found that values corresponding to billions of dollars are destroyed in the industry. Not...

We examine the relation between dean turnover and changes in rankings in a comprehensive sample of business schools with ranked MBA programs from 1990-2002. We find little evidence that dean departures are related to changes in a school's overall rank in the U.S. News amp; World Report rankings....

In his 2007 book lt;igt;No Seat at the Tablelt;/igt;, Professor Douglas Branson aptly describes how patterns of male dominance inherent in the legal structures of corporate governance reproduce themselves again and again to keep women out of executive suites and boardrooms, and then he offers a...

During a period of increasing turbulence and uncertainty in the corporate world, this timely paper contains the complete body of work addressed in the quot;Corporate Defense Insights: Dispatches from the Front Linequot; Qamp;A series (individually published at the RiskCenter throughout the...

For over three decades, the benefits of operational focus have been touted under the guiding principle that dedicated attention to a subset of linked tasks will improve performance. The empirical evidence on the benefits of focus, however, is mixed. We explore the effect of operational focus by...