Determinants and Value of Enterprise Risk Management: Empirical Evidence from the Literature

The development of an enterprise risk management (ERM) program enables companies to manage corporate risks in a holistic manner as opposed to the silo‐based perspective in traditional risk management frameworks. One main question in this regard is what factors drive the implementation of an ERM system in companies and whether ERM programs can actually create value once implemented. This article addresses these questions by conducting a comparative assessment of empirical evidence from the literature regarding the determinants of ERM and its value once implemented. In doing so we are able to illustrate differences in model specifications and the underlying data. Our literature study shows that particularly the company size and the level of institutional ownership are significantly positively related to the implementation of ERM in most empirical studies and, furthermore, that ERM generally has a (significant) positive impact on corporate value and performance (to a different extent and depending on the focus of the studies). However, geographic and/or industrial restrictions regarding the underlying data sets partly limit the generalization of the empirical results.