This article examines the use of enterprise risk management (ERM) by companies in Canada, the characteristics that are associated with the use of ERM, what obstacles companies face in implementing ERM, and what role, if any, corporate governance guidelines have played in the decision to adopt ERM. We obtained our data from the responses to a mail survey sent to Canadian Risk and Insurance Management Society members as well as telephone interviews with 19 of the respondents. The results indicate that 31 percent of the sample had adopted ERM and that reasons for adopting ERM include the influence of the risk manager (61 percent), encouragement from the board of directors (51 percent), and compliance with Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE) guidelines (37 percent). The major deterrents to ERM were an organizational structure that discourages ERM and an overall resistance to change. Although only about one-third of companies indicated that they had adopted an ERM approach, evidence was clear that a larger portion of the sample was moving in that direction, as indicated by what changes they had observed in their companies in the past three years. These include the development of company-wide guidelines for risk management (45 percent), an increased awareness of nonoperational risks by operational risk management personnel and an increased awareness of operational risks by nonoperational risk management personnel (49 percent), more coordination with different areas responsible for risk management (64 percent), and more involvement and interaction in the decision making of other departments. Contrary to what we expected, there was not a significant difference between firms that are listed on the TSE versus those that are not in terms of the propensity to use ERM. However, the fact that 37 percent of firms indicated that the TSE guidelines were influential in their decision to adopt ERM provides some evidence that the guidelines are influencing companies' risk management strategies.Anne Kleffner is an Associate Professor of Risk Management and Insurance at the Haskayne

Although the transferring of a firm's pure risk historically has been conducted through the insurance and reinsurance markets, risk managers of large corporations are reportedly becoming more sophisticated with regard to their risk financing strategies. This increased sophistication has come in the form of greater use of techniques such as captives, finite risk insurance, financial reinsurance, and risk retention groups. The purpose of this study is to assess the characteristics and extent of integrated risk management. Using survey data, we evaluate several aspects of risk management integration, including (1) the extent to which risk managers are involved in managing both pure and financial risks facing their firms, (2) the nonoperational types of risks handled by risk managers and the techniques being used to handle a broader set of risks, and (3) the effect that factors such as the size of the firm, the firm's industry, and the background and training of the risk manager has on participation in integrated risk management activities.

This study provides a test of the eclectic paradigm with data from U.S. reinsurers. The U.S. reinsurance industry provides a unique setting to test the eclectic paradigm due to the extensive data available on U.S. reinsurers and the well-developed literature related to reinsurance. The ability to test the hypotheses related to the eclectic paradigm in a service industry and incorporate industry-specific factors adds to the eclectic paradigm literature which has traditionally focused primarily on manufacturing firms. In addition, the application of the eclectic paradigm to the reinsurance industry provides an empirical framework that combines several prior streams of literature which examine the reinsurer's decision to internationalize. The current study includes firm-specific factors, country-specific factors of the international markets, and factors related to the U.S. reinsurance industry. This article finds support for traditional factors impacting globalization such as host market size, loss experience, and competitiveness as well as reinsurer's ability to expand based on available capacity. Understanding the importance of firm-, country-, and industry-specific factors is key for managers, as analyzing these issues in isolation may lead to an incomplete picture of the factors impacting the internationalization decision, hindering managers' ability to make decisions that are in the best interest of the firm. With the continued interdependence of the world reinsurance marketplace, as well as the recent expansion of the European Union, internationalization issues are of critical importance not only to U.S. insurers, reinsurers, and regulators, but also to their global counterparts. Copyright The Journal of Risk and Insurance, 2007.

Dietary emulsifiers are widely used in industrially processed foods, although the effects of these food additives on human gut microbiota are not well studied. Here, we investigated the effects of five different emulsifiers [glycerol monoacetate, glycerol monostearate, glycerol monooleate, propylene glycol monostearate, and sodium stearoyl lactylate (SSL)] on fecal microbiota in vitro. We found that 0.025% (w/v) of SSL reduced the relative abundance of the bacterial class Clostridia and others. The relative abundance of the families Clostridiaceae, Lachnospiraceae, and Ruminococcaceae was substantially reduced whereas that of Bacteroidaceae and Enterobacteriaceae was increased. Given the marked impact of SSL on Clostridia, we used genome reconstruction to predict community-wide production of short-chain fatty acids, which were experimentally assessed by GC-MS analysis. SSL significantly reduced concentrations of butyrate, and increased concentrations of propionate compared to control cultures. The presence of SSL increased lipopolysaccharide, LPS and flagellin in cultured communities, thereby enhancing the proinflammatory potential of SSL-selected bacterial communities.