Chapter 5 Risk and uncertainty
Chapter learning objectives
1 Introduction
1.1 Risk and uncertainty
Risk in business is the chance that future events or results may not be as expected. This can take two forms:
§ Downside exposure (‘pure risk’) – outcomes are less favourable than expected. For example, costs may be higher than anticipated.
§ Upside exposure (‘speculative risk’) –outcomes are more favourable than expected. For example, sales growth is higher than budgeted.
Risk is important as we normally assume rational investors (e.g. the firm’s shareholders) to be ‘risk averse’. This means that they are only willing to accept higher risk if there is the expectation of a higher return to compensate. How much higher will depend on the individual investor but the key issue is that risk is often discussed in the context of a risk/return trade-off.
While many people use the terms interchangeably, some writers make a distinction between ‘risk’ and ‘uncertainty’:
§ The term ‘risk’ is used for scenarios where it is possible to identify different possible outcomes and assign probabilities to them.
For example, based on past experience, a sales team may estimate that they have a 60% chance of winning a particular sales pitch and a 40% chance of losing the tender.
Such scenarios can be analysed using a range of different techniques, such as expected values.中华考试网(www．Examw。com)
§ The term ‘uncertainty’ is used for scenarios where it is not possible to identify different possible outcomes and assign probabilities to them.
For example, when trying to predict the likely behaviour of a new entrant into a market, some possible actions may be identifiable, such as price cuts, but trying to assign probabilities may be very speculative at best.
The lack of probabilities limits the range of techniques available to assess the situation. |
发表于 2012-2-23 17:09:42
