IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/21368.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The invention of operational risk

Author

Listed:
  • Power, Michael

Abstract

Until the 'Basel 2' reforms to banking supervision, operational risk was largely a residual category for risks and uncertainties which were difficult to quantify, insure and manage in traditional ways. This paper examines the rapid emergence of operational risk from this low epistemic status to its institutionalisation as a key component of global banking regulation. However, the meaning and implications of the Basel proposals have been fiercely contested by international banks and three key domains of policy controversy have been, and remain, particularly visible: definitional issues, data collection and the limits of quantification. Tensions in these three areas are discussed and reveal the significance of operational risk as a meeting point for diverse concerns and interests, and as a potential reinvention of a management knowledge hybrid between auditing and finance. The paper draws attention to the ironies and contradictions of this operational risk programme, which is part of a visionary project to extend 'enforced self-regulation' deep into the operations of banking, combining advanced technical modelling ideas on the one hand and softer corporate governance thinking on the other. The Basel 2 proposals also demonstrate the policy effectiveness of 'operational risk' as an agenda-forming category, whose success lies as much in the catalytic visibility of the issue, as in the in the details of implementation.

Suggested Citation

  • Power, Michael, 2003. "The invention of operational risk," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 21368, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:21368
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/21368/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hood, Christopher & Rothstein, Henry & Baldwin, Robert, 2004. "The Government of Risk: Understanding Risk Regulation Regimes," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199270019.
    2. Burchell, Stuart & Clubb, Colin & Hopwood, Anthony G., 1985. "Accounting in its social context: Towards a history of value added in the United Kingdom," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 381-413, October.
    3. Barreiros, Lídia., 1985. "Towards social accounting," ILO Working Papers 992431063402676, International Labour Organization.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rawan ABUZARQA, 2019. "Banking Risk Management According To The Requirements Of The Basel Agreements," SEA - Practical Application of Science, Romanian Foundation for Business Intelligence, Editorial Department, issue 19, pages 29-38, May.
    2. Marianne Ojo, 2010. "Risk management by the Basel Committee," Journal of Financial Regulation and Compliance, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 18(4), pages 305-315, November.
    3. Ojo, Marianne, 2008. "Risk management by the Basel Committee: evaluating progress made from the 1988 Basel Accord to recent developments," MPRA Paper 26365, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Nov 2010.
    4. Pailhé, Cristina & Delfiner, Miguel & Mangialavori, Ana, 2007. "Buenas practicas para la administracion del riesgo operacional en entidades financieras [Sound practices for the management of operational risk in financial institutions (in Spanish)]," MPRA Paper 1803, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jan 2007.
    5. Paul Willman & Mark Fenton‐O'Creevy & Nigel Nicholson & Emma Soane, 2006. "Noise Trading and the Management of Operational Risk; Firms, Traders and Irrationality in Financial Markets," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(6), pages 1357-1374, September.
    6. Olajide Solomon Fadun & Diekolola Oye, 2020. "Impacts of Operational Risk Management on Financial Performance:A Case of Commercial Banks in Nigeria," International Journal of Finance & Banking Studies, Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 9(1), pages 22-35, January.
    7. Ojo, Marianne, 2009. "Reviewing regulatory objectives: should the scope of regulation be extended?," MPRA Paper 15547, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Dervis Kirikkaleli & Pelin Yaylali & Okan Veli Safakli, 2020. "The Perception and Culture of Operational Risk in the Banking Sector: Evidence From Northern Cyprus," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(4), pages 21582440209, October.
    9. Daniela Ruggeri & Antonio Leotta & Carmela Rizza, 2018. "The Bank Lending Process: Accounting Information Role in Constructing Realities or Illusions," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 13(2), pages 1-53, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Miller, Peter, 1997. "The multiplying machine," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 22(3-4), pages 355-364.
    2. Bigoni, Michele & Funnell, Warwick, 2015. "Ancestors of governmentality: Accounting and pastoral power in the 15th century," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 160-176.
    3. Matias Laine, 2009. "Ensuring legitimacy through rhetorical changes?," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 22(7), pages 1029-1054, September.
    4. Alpenberg, Jan & Paul Scarbrough, D., 2018. "Trust and control in changing production environments," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 527-534.
    5. Lambert Jerman, 2013. "La Juste Valeur : Une Comptabilite Actuarielle Pour Les Marches ... Ou Les Comptables ?," Post-Print hal-00991877, HAL.
    6. Maran, Laura & Bracci, Enrico & Funnell, Warwick, 2016. "Accounting and the management of power: Napoleon’s occupation of the commune of Ferrara (1796–1799)," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 60-78.
    7. Hayoun, Shaul, 2019. "How fair value is both market-based and entity-specific: The irreducibility of value constellations to market prices," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 68-82.
    8. Power, Michael, 2015. "How accounting begins: Object formation and the accretion of infrastructure," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 43-55.
    9. Martha Poon, 2009. "From New Deal institutions to capital markets: commercial consumer risk scores and the making of subprime mortgage finance," Post-Print halshs-00359712, HAL.
    10. Toms, J. S., 2002. "The rise of modern accounting and the fall of the public company: the Lancashire cotton mills 1870-1914," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 27(1-2), pages 61-84.
    11. Ejiogu, Amanze & Ambituuni, Ambisisi & Ejiogu, Chibuzo, 2021. "Accounting for accounting’s role in the neoliberalization processes of social housing in England: A Bourdieusian perspective," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    12. Axel Haller & Chris J. van Staden & Cristina Landis, 2018. "Value Added as part of Sustainability Reporting: Reporting on Distributional Fairness or Obfuscation?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 152(3), pages 763-781, October.
    13. Carol Adams & Nongnooch Kuasirikun, 2000. "A comparative analysis of corporate reporting on ethical issues by UK and German chemical and pharmaceutical companies," European Accounting Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 53-79.
    14. Hamilton, Gavin & Ó hÓgartaigh, Ciarán, 2009. "The Third Policeman: ‘The true and fair view’, language and the habitus of accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 20(8), pages 910-920.
    15. Castillo Elizabeth A., 2018. "Qualities before Quantities: A Framework to Develop Dynamic Assessment of the Nonprofit Sector," Nonprofit Policy Forum, De Gruyter, vol. 9(3), pages 1-14, October.
    16. Mennicken, Andrea & Miller, Peter & Samiolo, Rita, 2008. "Accounting for economic sociology," economic sociology. perspectives and conversations, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, vol. 10(1), pages 3-7.
    17. Richardson, Alan J. & Kilfoyle, Eksa, 2016. "Accounting institutions as truce: The emergence of accounting in the governance of transnational mail flows," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 32-47.
    18. Steven F. Cahan & Chris J. Van Staden, 2009. "Black economic empowerment, legitimacy and the value added statement: evidence from post‐apartheid South Africa," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 49(1), pages 37-58, March.
    19. repec:dau:papers:123456789/402 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Prem Sikka, 2008. "Corporate governance: what about the workers?," Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 21(7), pages 955-977, September.
    21. Ding, Yuan & Richard, Jacques & Stolowy, Hervé, 2008. "Towards an understanding of the phases of goodwill accounting in four Western capitalist countries: From stakeholder model to shareholder model," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 33(7-8), pages 718-755.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:21368. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.