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The Impact of Workload on Operational Risk: Evidence from a Commercial Bank

Author

Listed:
  • Yuqian Xu

    (Department of Business Administration, Gies College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois 61820)

  • Tom Fangyun Tan

    (Information Technology and Operations Management Department, Cox School of Business, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas 75275)

  • Serguei Netessine

    (Operations, Information and Decisions Department, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104)

Abstract

Operational risk has been among the three most significant types of risks in the financial services industry, and its management is mandated by Basel II regulations. To inform better labor decisions, this paper studies how workload affects banks’ operational risk event occurrence. To achieve this goal, we use a unique data set from a commercial bank in China that contains 1,441 operational risk events over 16 months. We find that workload has a U-shaped impact on operational risk error rate. More specifically, the error rate of operational risk events decreases first, as workload increases, and then increases. Furthermore, when workload is low, employees tend to make performance-seeking risks; however, when workload is high, employees tend to exhibit quality degradation due to cognitive multitasking. Based on the causal relationship between workload and operational risk events from the empirical analysis, we discuss staffing policies among branches aimed at reducing operational risk losses. We find that employing a flexible staffing rule can significantly reduce the number of operational risk events by 3.2%–10% under different scenarios. In addition, this significant performance improvement can be achieved by adding even a little bit of flexibility to the process by allowing employees to either switch their business lines in the same branch or switch branches within the same business lines on a quarterly basis.

Suggested Citation

  • Yuqian Xu & Tom Fangyun Tan & Serguei Netessine, 2022. "The Impact of Workload on Operational Risk: Evidence from a Commercial Bank," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 68(4), pages 2668-2693, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ormnsc:v:68:y:2022:i:4:p:2668-2693
    DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2021.4019
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