Using Industry-Sponsored Game Nights to Educate About Risk and Insurance

As educators in the field of risk management and insurance, we see know- ledge of risk management and insurance as a core business function. However, some colleagues and students see insurance as cold-call sales or companies with a lot of money that continue to raise their prices. So we have to find ways to make our public aware of the usefulness of risk management and insurance in the business world and in private life and of the opportunities that having such knowledge presents to all business majors and business people. One method that is beginning to show dramatic improvements in at least our students' perceptions of the field and the major involves industry-sponsored game nights. While not an academic endeavor nor strictly risk management education, we believe the idea provides a useful tool for opening students' eyes to the need for knowledge of risk management and insurance and of the opportunities that are available in the insurance industry and its related fields. This article discusses the history of such an event at Appalachian State Univer- sity, the current status of the North Carolina Surplus Lines Association (NCSLA) event, and the benefits of the event.     

Determinants of Corporate Diversification: Evidence From the Property–Liability Insurance Industry

This article analyzes variations in line‐of‐business diversification status and extent among property–liability insurers. Our results show that the extent of diversification is not driven by risk pooling considerations; insurers operating in more volatile business lines do not diversify more. Diversification can rather be explained by the benefits of internal capital markets and barriers to business growth like market size and concentration. In our analysis, we distinguish between related and unrelated diversification. Using a measure of unrelated line‐of‐business diversification we find the first support for the diversification prediction of the managerial discretion hypothesis that mutual insurers should be less diversified than stock insurers. While mutual insurers tend to exhibit higher levels of total diversification, they engage in significantly less unrelated diversification than do stock insurers.     

Academic Dishonesty: An Exploratory Study Examining Whether Insurance Students Are Different From Other College Students

This exploratory study compares academic dishonesty scores for insurance students in one insurance program to those for other college students using survey data from business and nonbusiness students at two universities. Academic dishonesty was measured using a modified version of a scale developed by McCabe and Trevino , with a higher score indicating greater academic dishonesty. The average score on total academic dishonesty was significantly higher for insurance students than for other business students and lower, but not significantly so, than the scores for nonbusiness students. Regression analysis indicates that a significant predictor of academic dishonesty for both insurance students and other business students is the perceived relevance of the work to the student's major coursework. There were some differences, however, in the other significant predictors for insurance students versus other business students. Specifically, year in school was significant only for insurance majors, while membership in a Greek social organization and a belief that there was a low risk of getting caught were significant only for other business majors. Furthermore, the significant predictors of academic dishonesty were different for insurance students and nonbusiness students. Overall, the results indicate that insurance students are more likely to engage in academically dishonest behavior than other business students, and the motivation for academic dishonesty differs for insurance students and other students (both nonbusiness and other business). This suggests a need for insurance educators to address academic dishonesty using an approach that is somewhat different than that used for other students.     

Strategic Market Entry Project

Successful risk management is critical to top level decision makers in any organization, involving fundamental strategic policy and planning to identify and allocate scarce resources to projects or activities that generate sustainable competitive advantage and maximize available long‐term growth opportunities, or even survival. This article describes a flexible group project wherein students of risk management and insurance (RMI) may gain additional exposure and experience with applications of fundamental strategic management theory in the context of their particular RMI major coursework. The Project may be a useful tool in helping RMI students further develop their research and presentation skills, as well as enhance critical strategic decision making; exposure to cultural, regional or globalization issues; application of fundamental strategic management concepts; and knowledge of current events. While this Project was developed primarily for RMI students, students across business disciplines also may benefit from participation.     

Relative Risk Aversion as an Arc Elasticity

Risk aversion is the central reason why individuals purchase insurance and undertake other forms of risk management. But deriving the Pratt–Arrow coefficient of relative risk aversion from a utility function requires familiarity with differential calculus—a level of mathematics beyond the prerequisites for most introductory risk management courses. Thus, students are not exposed to one of the most important and fundamental concepts in the field unless and until they take more advanced courses. The present article demonstrates that relative risk aversion can be obtained as an arc elasticity using only elementary mathematics. This approach highlights the relationship between risk aversion and the demand for insurance, and integrates concepts from the principles of economics course, helping to unify the business curriculum. Numerical examples are easily computed and graphed using electronic spreadsheets, providing students with a hands-on learning experience. For sufficiently small risks, the arc elasticity measure reduces to the Pratt–Arrow coefficient, providing a platform for discussing the difference between large-scale and small-scale risk aversion in upper-level courses.     

University Tees: Introducing fundamentals of management accounting in a small business

This case introduces sophomore-level managerial accounting students to pricing decisions. The case also offers an opportunity to discuss the concepts of business strategy, business risk, and cost drivers. Students draw on concepts such as relevant costing, breakeven analysis, and contribution format income statements to recommend price quotes for a small business.¹     

How to integrate a business plan into your introductory accounting course

This article provides a business plan assignment, along with a business plan grading sheet, oral presentation grading sheet, and peer evaluation form for use in a user-oriented introductory accounting course. The article includes a discussion of issues related to making the group project assignment run smoothly, such as assigning students to groups, simplifying assumptions, ways to add specificity, grading of written reports, and set-up and grading of oral presentations.     

Assessing business risk: The case of Premier Punch, Inc

The recently issued Statement on Auditing Standards No. 109, Understanding the Entity and Its Environment and Assessing the Risks of Material Misstatement, emphasizes the need for auditors to understand the client’s business and environment, particularly the client’s business risk [American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) (2006a), understanding the entity and its environment and assessing the risks of material misstatement, Statement on Auditing Standards No. 109. New York, NY: AICPA]. However, the manner in which auditors obtain such an understanding, especially an auditor’s assessment of a client’s business risk, is often challenging for students because they lack the business experience necessary to perform such an assessment. This case provides students with an opportunity to assess business risk in a realistic context that includes evidence beyond the content of the financial statements. Company information is provided via a webpage (www.premierpunch.com) with content similar to that of an actual investor relations site. Students must evaluate the information presented in the company’s annual report, press releases and other sources, and consider the impact of that information on several facets of business risk. Students also perform an analytical review of the company’s financial statements and synthesize the case information into a professional memo containing their assessment of business risk.     

Student Perceptions of the Insurance Profession

To attract students to the risk management and insurance profession, strategies need to be developed to overcome biases in their perceptions of the profession. This study attempts to determine some of those perceptions of students—specifically a group of business career high school students and a group of college students enrolled in an introduction to business course—about the personality traits of insurance professionals. A Personality Factor Questionnaire previously used extensively in other research was used to measure differences in student perceptions of personality profiles of different professions. We also measured how student characteristics such as age, sex, and expected college major influence student perceptions of these traits. The overall general conclusion was that perceptions of the profession are not as negative as many imagine, but do require some substantive work to improve, even among students seeking business careers.     

我国网络银行业务风险的分析

我国目前网络银行业务风险分析与管理中存在着许多不足,需要加强风险分析与管理。本文从风险特征、识别、初选等环节分析网络银行风险,阐明目前业务风险分析与管理中的不足,并提出了加强风险分析与管理的建议。     

基于风险防范视角的商业银行信用债券承销业务研究

金融危机以来,中国人民银行、中国银行业监督管理委员会推出多项政策,加强对银行体系的规模控制和风险管理,商业银行大举开拓信用债券承销业务.但其管理水平尚不能与业务规模和发展速度相适应,多数银行还未能建立起一整套覆盖所有业务环节的风险管理制度.本文从风险防范的视角出发开展研究,指出商业银行在信用债券承销业务管理中存在信用风险、市场风险、操作风险、法律风险及授权风险.在此基础上,作者结合监管要求和信用债券承销业务特征,从战略、政策、流程等诸多方面提出若干应对风险的方法和措施.     

35 years of studies on business failure: an overview of the classic statistical methodologies and their related problems

Over the last 35 years, business failure prediction has become a major research domain within corporate finance. Numerous corporate failure prediction models have been developed, based on various modelling techniques. The most popular are the classic cross-sectional statistical methods, which have resulted in various ‘single-period’ or static models, especially multivariate discriminant models and logit models. To date, there has been no clear overview and discussion of the application of classic statistical methods to business failure prediction. Therefore, this paper extensively elaborates on the application of (1) univariate analysis, (2) risk index models, (3) multivariate discriminant analysis, and (4) conditional probability models in corporate failure prediction. In addition, because there is no clear and comprehensive analysis in the existing literature of the diverse problems related to the application of these methods to the topic of corporate failure prediction, this paper brings together all problem issues and enlarges upon each of them. It discusses all problems related to: (1) the classical paradigm (i.e. the arbitrary definition of failure, non-stationarity and data instability, sampling selectivity, and the choice of the optimisation criteria); (2) the neglect of the time dimension of failure; and (3) the application focus in failure prediction modelling. Further, the paper elaborates on a number of other problems related to the use of a linear classification rule, the use of annual account information, and neglect of the multidimensional nature of failure. This paper contributes towards a thorough understanding of the features of the classic statistical business failure prediction models and their related problems.     

An Insurance Pricing Game

Understanding data and statistical distributions is a fundamental part of an undergraduate business student's education. The insurance pricing game presented here gives the students a unique way to apply statistical analysis in the classroom. The game requires decision making about risk with limited information. Specifically, the students must decide what “premium” to charge the members of a hypothetical risk pool. The game provides teachers with a discussion platform for numerous aspects of insurer risk pooling.     

融资融券业务的投资风险分析——基于昌九生化融资爆仓案例

论文运用案例分析的方法,首先介绍了融资融券业务的基本概念,然后结合2013年发生的昌九生化融资爆仓案,通过初始保证金比例、资金杠杆乘数、维持担保比例等角度细致分析了融资融券业务的投资风险,并据此在文章最后提出了关于平衡风险和收益及完善我国融资融券业务的建议.     

Future roles of business in society: the expanding boundaries of corporate responsibility and a compelling case for partnership

The roles and responsibilities of business in society, in particular global business, are being defined more broadly by an expanding range of stakeholders. This paper aims to review these changes and their implications in order to understand better the likely future expectations of business in society and the way in which leading companies are setting new standards of responsible business practice. It begins by tracing trends within corporate social responsibility debates, and then draws on empirical research and observed stakeholder demands of business, to argue that the boundaries of corporate responsibility are advancing both internally and externally.Internally, these boundaries are changing in terms of the increased responsibility of corporations towards their direct and indirect internal stakeholders. This is shown through innovations in business practice to achieve enhanced social justice in the workplace, improved governance, and more accurate disclosure of non-financial risk. This paper provides a context for this discussion by examining emerging international law, guidelines and voluntary initiatives, regulatory frameworks, and risk review procedures that increasingly seek to redefine corporate responsibility by establishing new norms of best practice and behaviour. These boundaries are also expanding externally, as society increasingly expects global business to work with others to provide solutions to humanitarian crises and endemic problems facing the world. This paper explores how some companies are doing this by applying core competencies in ways that integrate social development and business goals. It suggests, in turn, that the challenges of these expanding boundaries of responsibilities are best addressed through strategic partnerships.This paper concludes that there are new multi-stakeholder convened global governance frameworks evolving that are encouraging businesses of the future to re-invent themselves as a ‘force for positive good’ in society. This involves going beyond the paradigm of simply ‘doing no harm’, and way beyond previous expectations of business as being only about shareholder value. This prediction is supported by examples drawn from the practice of global companies that are already innovating to fulfil this wider role.     

An Empirical Analysis of the Effect of Financial Education on Graduating Business Students’ Perceptions of Their Retirement Planning Familiarity,Motivation, and Preparedness

Today's multifaceted and dynamic financial environment requires a high level of individual financial literacy to ensure that sound financial behaviors are the norm. Unfortunately, many individuals have limited knowledge regarding financial issues and are ill prepared to make sound financial choices. The purpose of this article was to benchmark and then determine if graduating business students’ perception of their retirement planning familiarity, motivation, and preparedness improved after taking a semester‐long course in Personal Risk Management and Insurance (PRMI). We discovered that business students were more financially literate than nonbusiness students and that business students’ familiarity with retirement plans and personal level of readiness to make retirement planning decisions improved significantly after taking the principles class. Specifically, we showed that only 15.8 percent and 42.3 percent of the nonbusiness and business control students, respectively, felt adequately prepared to make retirement decisions, while 82 percent of the business students who completed the PRMI class felt prepared. Ex post, graduating seniors who were exposed to coursework covering life‐cycle risks and options to treat those risks perceived that they are leaving college with a better ability to meet the financial challenges that await them. Last, we showed that significant differences existed in retirement plan and investment familiarity based on gender. Our findings provide support for including financial literacy as a general education requirement at colleges and universities.     

Determinants of market beta: the impacts of firm-specific accounting figures and market conditions

This article examines and extends research on the relation between the capital asset pricing model market beta, accounting risk measures and macroeconomic risk factors. We employ a beta decomposition approach that nests competing models with different business risk proxies and allows to frame cross-model comparison. Because model tests require estimated independent variables resulting in measurement error, we empirically estimate three comparable model specifications with instrumental variable estimators and for the first time provide thorough instrument diagnostics in this setting. Correcting for the heretofore neglected weak instruments problem we find that growth risk (i.e., the risk of firm sales variations that are inconsistent with the market wide trends), is the business risk that explains cross-sectional variations in market beta best.     

Integration of law with accouting: A more comprehensive learning experience

Since accounting principles is often a surrogate for an introduction to business course, it is an ideal medium for introducing students to many aspects of commercial, civil, and criminal law. When using the approach suggested in this article, care must be taken not to detract from the accounting course or diminish the course content in any way. The accounting course may, however, be greatly enhanced by the allusions and references made by the accounting professor to the various laws.This approach to instructing accounting offers a number of benefits. Students are not only assisted in their immediate course work, but also throughout their entire business program. The accounting course is enhanced by comprehensive handout materials which are provided to the students and which can be retained by the students as ready references during the course and thereafter. (Examples of such supplemental materials are presented.) Upon conclusion of several terms of accounting, the students have obtained an otherwise unavailable exposure to the interrelationship of accounting and law.     

德克夏银行案例分析及其启示

本文在简介德克夏银行资产、股权、业务结构的基础上,分析了德克夏银行在欧洲债务危机中面临的困境,包括再融资困难、资产减值、经营亏损、资本充足率下降等,并深入分析了德克夏银行被分拆的深层次原因,如业务结构、风险敞口结构等过度集中,以及借鉴德克夏银行经验教训,可以考虑的政策调整和监管改进,包括业务转型、政府救助的系统化安排和坚实的监管体系。     

Problem-solving styles of accounting students: Are expectations of innovation reasonable?

In response to input from the profession, accounting programs are attempting to increase the innovative problem-solving skills of their students. However, they have done so without data on what the problem-solving styles of their students are, and without an understanding of the capacity for innovation by different problem-solving styles. This study compares the problem-solving styles of accounting students with other business majors and business minors. Results indicate that accounting students are predominantly adaptive in problem-solving style. Statistical analysis shows a significant difference in the problem-solving style of accounting students and other business majors, with other business majors more likely to be innovative. Implications of these findings for changes in the accounting curriculum and for the profession are discussed.