Corporate risk strategy: Does it vary across business activities?

The argument that an organization's risk strategy is a unified whole and an integral component of the organization's Total Strategy was subjected to empirical examination. Ninety-two of the 450 top executives of the largest industrial companies in Israel, representing various business sectors, responded to the research questionnaire. Contrary to the research hypothesis, it was found that risk strategy in an organization is not uniform but varies across activities. In-depth interviews with 21 of the participants supported the findings, suggesting that propensity to risk taking is generally high in activities that support organizational core competencies and competitive advantage, whereas in other activities it depends on the organization's being risk seeking or risk averse.