مدیریت ریسک و محیط کسب و کار در آفریقای جنوبی

Risk management involves tracking market and non-market long-range risks, understanding their adverse impact on the business environment, and managerial responses to reduce risk exposure. As an emerging market, South Africa poses a challenging array of long-term political, economic, financial and operational risks to investors. Risks such as concerns about increased costs, lack of transparency, limited capacity to enforce the rule of law, government intervention, a volatile currency, regional contagion and the HIV/Aids pandemic heighten uncertainty about the business environment. Managerial responses to anticipate and mitigate risks include matching mode of entry with risk tolerance, superior intelligence and lobbying, maintaining low tolerance for corruption, selecting appropriate financial instruments and balancing shareholder and stakeholder interests. The risk management framework presented, consisting of three elements: type of risk, impact of risks and managerial response to counter adverse risk impacts, may be refined and expanded for potential application to other emerging markets.

South Africa (SA) is known as the ‘engine of growth’ for the African continent, generating 45 percent of the continent’s GDP from only 10 percent of its population. The country’s economic output ranks 29th in the world, making it one of the 10 leading emerging markets. SA offers a sophisticated business environment in terms of infrastructure, legal system, natural and human resources, telecommunication network and financial services. Since 1994, SA has undergone sweeping political and economic transformation, but, as with all emerging markets, transformation is a work-in-progress. Since the end of Apartheid, the democratically elected ANC government has embarked on an extensive program of economic liberalization. The positive results have included an increase in competitiveness, international trade and inward bound investments. However, a variety of risks are still present in the business environment. After a decade of dramatic changes, it is prudent to assess the risk profile of SA and to raise awareness of the long-term risk management policies for present and potential investors. It is our intent to outline a risk management framework consisting of three inter-related elements: first, to identify the manifestations of various market and non-market risk types in SA; second, to illustrate how these risks may impact on business operations; third—the primary thrust of our framework—to analyze the various policy options that managers and firms may adopt to preempt or mitigate the adverse impact of risk. We have organized our paper into three parts: (1) a theoretical analysis of risk management; (2) a study of risk management in South Africa that addresses the three elements of risk identification, risk impact and managerial policy options; and (3) conclusion and suggestions for further inquiry.

Risk management in SA requires the identification of specific risks and their adverse impact on business. A number of response strategies are suggested to reduce exposure to long-term risks. As part of strategy, these policies offer a more focused approach to deal with risk, something lost in the aggregated rankings in country analysis. The utility of our framework requires further application in SA. The uncertainties in many sectors in SA challenge managers to understand and control industry or firm specific risks more effectively. For management researchers faced with multidisciplinary demands to understand risk management in foreign markets, continued exploration is essential to comprehend the impact of politics and other non-market forces on business decision-making. The future role of the SA government as an owner and co-opter or consumer and business-friendly rule-maker will determine market attractiveness in SA. Our intention was to develop a risk management framework and apply it to SA. Any generalization based upon our analysis about risk management in other emerging markets is premature. However, our framework and its three related elements (risk type, risk impact, managerial response) may be refined and expanded for possible application in case studies or comparative studies of emerging markets. This will be a positive step in identifying potential common trends in risk management in societies in the process of political, economic and social transformation.