Description: The paper takes a critical stand on best ERM practices as proposed by the Cultural Theory of Risk and especially by the work of Ingram, Underwood and Thompson (IUT). The paper claims that both mainstream-type ERM practices ("rigid ERM") and IUT's alternative ("fluid ERM") fail in critical parts to account how risk managers, in everyday normal tasks, develop their ERM practices in a context-dependent way. Context-dependent ERM takes into account the whole context, that is both the recognition that risk environment changes and the need for the firm to develop a stable (yet open to meaningful changes) sociotechnical identity with a consistent risk attitude and appetite.

Description: When regulators examine financial institutions, one of the most important areas on which they focus is capital requirements. This essay argues that we can’t push for neither too high nor too low default probabilities. Regulate too high and you introduce rigidity to the system: you choke the economy. Regulate too low and you introduce softness in your foundations: they cannot for long sustain the economy. Therefore, regulation should be set to provide a 'window for business'.

Description: Crises are devastating. They leave behind a high amount of entropy unemployment, poverty, lack of safety. But this is half the truth. The other half says that crises are to some extend good, because they provide a natural crash test to discover current practices’ risks and limitations, and in response, give rise to more efficient regulation, to financial innovations and to the wakening of the vitalizing powers of society, as the old and corrupted die and new ideas emerge and give us the opportunity to reflect upon the future we want to have.

Description: The author explores and argues against the “evolution of thinking” and the position that actuarial thinking is a blend of all three modes of thinking, as discussed by Dave Ingram in the February/March 2012 issue of The Actuary.