Managing Organisational Risk in a Global Pandemic

MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL RISK IN A GLOBAL PANDEMIC
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Managing Organizational Risk in a Global Pandemic
Risk and Risk Management
Risk can be defined as any situation that exposes an individual, organization or entity to danger (Cori, Bianchi, Cadum & Anthonj, 2020). A risk usually puts the person or entity in a position of significant disadvantage and vulnerability; if things do not go a certain way. Risk can be both a product of natural occurrences or artificial creation. Risk has always been part and parcel of the society, especially in the current age of technological advancement, where inventions and innovations are being made on a routine basis. In business, risk is often taken as an added advantage since entrepreneurship is all about risking. The covid19 pandemic was a real test of how organizations would manage risk and stay afloat. Governments and businesses were not really prepared for the pandemic, and its implications, with most of them, only focused on the short term with the belief that it would soon be over (Aven & Bouder, 2020). Some were too confident that things would soon resume normalcy and that the impact won’t be so felt in their routine operations.
Active business operators or managers constantly strive to understand surrounding or potential risks within their industry for better planning and preparedness. Leaders must concern themselves with uncertainties to avoid direct impacts like financial stability and people's health. Risk management involves assessing, identifying, and controlling an enterprise's threats that might stem from numerous sources, including technology issues, legal liabilities, operational errors, accidents, natural disasters, or pandemics. An effective risk evaluation program should help a company consider a vast range of jeopardies. The focus is to analyze significant organizational risks faced by a leading multinational company during a global pandemic.
Background
The outbreak of covid-19 health crisis in the world resulted in unprecedented impacts and moves made by authorities, such as regulatory measures taken to control the pandemic spread. The pandemic affected virtually all facets of business and every industry too. Government strategies for fighting the disaster had significant societal implications. For instance, businesses were forced to immediately integrate policies like working remotely, applying new communication systems, modifying environments, and altering physical practices to meet social distancing requirements. There is always the issue of whom to blame when these risks later come to bite the organization, given that, quite often, risks are so complex and interwoven (Cori, Bianchi, Cadum & Anthonj, 2020).
When a risk turns out to be beneficial, then that would be a business or managerial masterstroke. When it goes the other way, there will most likely be fingers to be pointed. Liability of corporations against individual liability is then put to test. In light of the changes introduced globally, the pandemic outbreak subjected organizations to vulnerabilities of actual and potential risks. Among the affected industry is the financial service sector, which was forced to adapt rapidly to market conditions and constraints. A multinational baking and investment enterprise like JPMorgan Chase & Co. encountered significant risks in the service line.
Risks Faced by JPMorgan Chase During the Covid-19 Pandemic
Quinlan’s Ten-Pathway Model
The ten pathways to disaster by Quinlan is a series of ten most common causes or risk factors that lead up to a given accident. He did so by studying several previous accidents in various countries and then coming up with a pattern or repeat causes in all of them. The more thorough he was with his investigations into these accidents, the more these patterns became evident in all of them. These factors form the basis of systemic criticism, and stoke the deterministic idea that catastrophes can be predicted early enough; and hence have the ability to be stopped (Leaver & Reader, 2016).
The ten pathway model works to establish patterns that can be used for further understanding of the risk or potential failure that might arise from the risk. From this, strategic decisions concerning the whole process can be developed. He noted the ten pathways to be; flaws in design and engineering or maintenance, flaws in risk assessment, failure to react timely to the evident warnings, flaws in management and personnel, flaws in auditing of the system, increased compromise of the larger system due to external economic pressures, flaws in regulation and oversight, concerns raised by personnel just before the accident, breakdown in relations between management and staff, and finally, flaws in emergency procedures (Lamm & Lips-Wiersma, 2018).
Application
JPMorgan Chase experiences a lot of challenges during the pandemic period, especially with the uncertainty that prevailed. Every business move was a risk that could even threaten the very existence of the company. Managing organizational risk during the pandemic period, therefore, called for theoretical and practical understanding; to at least try and place a finger on any sort of direction in the complexities and uncertainties of the time. Using Quinlan's ten-pathway model, three significant risks faced by a multinational business in the finance service industry are notable.
First, cyber-attacks became more prone during the health crisis due to the entity shifting to online service delivery. The sudden global response to the disaster was not without critical security gaps in organizations. Businesses were forced to allow workers to operate from homes, foregoing considerations of cyber safety in the communication processes. Therefore, companies resorted to knee-jerk reactions to embrace technological practices they had not tried and tested prior to the pandemic. They, therefore, embraced an application that still had a lot of loopholes and a serious threat to the overall operations of the company.
According to Quinlan's third pathway to failure, lack of risk assessment is a causal factor of most fatal incidents emanating from ignorance to undertake accurate risk assessments (Jenke et al., 2022, 2). A practical risk evaluation program should be based on an informed knowledge of hazards and monitoring the situation to detect changes. Cyber-attacks surged, impacting JPMorgan Chase through phishing attempts to manipulate people's concerns and interest for information and more sophisticated tactics like attacks on networks. Remote working calls for greater attention to cyber issues, apparent from individuals' lack of awareness of malicious attempts or scams (Ghadge et al., 2019, 224). Cyber attackers took advantage of the pandemic crisis to capitalize on people's strong desire for information. JPMorgan Chase, therefore, needs to have performed a thorough assessment of these real and potential risks to its systems.
The second risk faced by the service-based entity is fraud, as criminals attempt to exploit the pandemic situation. For instance, the shift to working remotely subjected workers to operate in less supervised and secure environments with increased electronic interactions. As such, remote employees with unfamiliar telework solutions increased security threa...