The Effects of Enterprise Risk Management on Firm Performance

We study the effect of adoption of enterprise risk management (ERM) principles on firms’ long-term performance by examining how financial, asset and market characteristics change around the time of ERM adoption. Using a sample of 106 firms that announce the hiring of a Chief Risk Officer (an event frequently accompanied by adoption of Enterprise Risk Management) we find that some firms adopting ERM experience a reduction in earnings volatility. In general however, we find little impact from ERM adoption on a wide range of firm variables. While our results could be due to lower power tests, they also raise the question of whether ERM is achieving its stated goals. Overall, our results fail to find support for the proposition that ERM is value creating, although further study is called for, in particular the study of how ERM success can be measured.