Supply chain risk management and the role of project managers: a comparative analysis of US and Japanese firms

In today's tremendously uncertain business environment, business firms are faced with a wide variety of risks, and risk management is now widely accepted as an important tool in the management of businesses and projects. However, research suggests that there may be differences in the ways that risks are perceived and managed in different cultures. This paper contributes to our understanding of risk management across cultures through the analysis of a risk-management survey administered to firms in both Japan and the USA. The analysis compares risk management practices of Japanese and US firms. Specifically, this paper investigates the patterns of product risk management utilised by US and Japanese firms and discusses possible causes of their differences and how the differences affect firm behaviour. Key findings include that 1) US firms have relatively weak risk management systems compared to their Japanese counterparts; 2) US firms using both project managers and quality management departments for risk management are proactive in their risk management; 3) those firms using only project managers for risk management are reluctant to expand or renew their risk management systems. Possible causes of these differences and how the differences affect firm behaviour are discussed.