Integrating Behavioural and Economic Concepts of Risk into Strategic Management: The Twain Shall Meet

Abstract

This paper develops an integrated framework of risk management and strategic competitive advantage that incorporates behavioural and economic notions of risk. The resulting model argues for the importance of risk-taking to sustainable competitive advantage and ultimately to firm performance. The model integrates framing effects of attainment discrepancy, transaction costs from implicit contracts theory and capital costs from finance theory. The proposed model suggests that continuous risk-taking by firms may help sustain competitive advantage and thus lower firm risk. This, in turn, effectively increases market returns to shareholders by ensuring earnings growth while simultaneously reducing the risk premium discount attached to a firm’s future income stream.

Keywords: risk, risk management, behavioral theory, attainment discrepancy