Governance, Ethics and Sustainability: Risk Assessment of Property Millionaires

This report provides an in-depth risk assessment of Property Millionaires, covering pressure points due to growth, culture, and information management. It also offers recommendations to mitigate the identified risks.

Running Head: GOVERNANCE, ETHICS AND SUSTAINABILITY
GOVERNANCE, ETHICS AND SUSTAINABILITY
Name of the Student:
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1GOVERNANCE, ETHICS AND SUSTAINABILITY
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction................................................................................................................................3
1.1 purpose of the risk assessment...............................................................................................3
1.2 Method...................................................................................................................................3
2.0 Pressure points due to growth....................................................................................................4
i) Pressure for performance.........................................................................................................4
ii) Rate of expansion....................................................................................................................4
iii) Inexperience of key employees..............................................................................................5
3.0 Pressure points due to culture....................................................................................................6
i) Rewards for entrepreneurial risk taking...................................................................................6
ii) Executive resistance to bad news............................................................................................6
iii) Level of internal competition.................................................................................................7
4.0 Pressure points due to information management.......................................................................8
i) Transaction complexity and velocity.......................................................................................8
ii) Gaps in diagnostic performance..............................................................................................8
iii) Degree of decentralised decision making..............................................................................9
5.0 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................9
6.0 Recommendation.....................................................................................................................10
Reference.......................................................................................................................................11
Appendix........................................................................................................................................13

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1.0 Introduction
Risk is an obvious issue that all business companies are facing in every steps of taking
decisions or initiating any project. However, the most important part for a company is to identify
those risks proactively so that before the erection of the risks it will be mitigated (Graetz and
Franks 2016). As a result of that the company did not face any issues and able to continue its
business effectively. In this regard, the role of risk exposure calculator is to evaluate and
prioritise the risks so that the company can choose risk mitigation process accordingly based on
the weightage of the risks.
1.1 purpose of the risk assessment
The purpose of this risk assessment report is to formulate an extensive discussion over
the risks in the case study company Property Millionaires. The assessment aims to formulate in-
depth research on the prescribed risk and recommend some steps that can help to build up a
strong and effective organisational practice.
1.2 Method
Before discussing the potential risks, it is also essential to give the risks some value
through the use of risk calculator. The role of the risk calculator is to put value on the risks and
help the company to opt for the risks as per the intensity which is showing in the risk exposure
calculator.

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2.0 Pressure points due to growth
i) Pressure for performance
The risk exposure calculator identifies the weightage of the pressure for performance in
Property Millionaires is 5 which is the maximum value of the calculator. It means, there are
certainly something very serious threat that the risk is posed in the stable business orientation of
Property Millionaires. According to Ryazanova, McNamara and Aguinis (2017) it can be stated
that pressure in business is definitely a common factor but the intensity and the reason of the
pressure matters the most. As a matter of fact, from the research of Taghian, D’Souza and
Polonsky (2015) it was found that the ability and willingness of the employees were also played
significant role that determined the performance of the workforce. In case of Property
Millionaires, due to the aggressive business expansion strategy the employees have to take extra
initiative to make the company a success by achieving all the objectives of the organisation.
However, dearth of ability of the regional manager and the top down decision making make it
critical for the consultants to work efficiently. The top management never evaluates the ability of
the consultants to achieve the prescribed target or not. Therefore, it will definitely leave a
detrimental impact on the performance of the consultants which is a serious threat for the
organisation as well.
ii) Rate of expansion
The risk exposure calculator evaluated the risk of rate of expansion with 4 marks. It
means there is high level of vulnerability that the organisation is going to face in order to bring
aggressive rate of expansion. Darger, Tuck and Bennett (2017) opined that the rate of expansion
of an organisation is generally based on the resources and capabilities of the organisation.

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Moreover, the demand in the market is also have the ability to influence the expansion rate of the
organisation (Guercini and Milanesi 2019). For Property Millionaires, there are certainly a
number of issues that are not suitable with the aggressive expansion strategy. It is true that there
is high market demand among the Australian consumers nevertheless the organisational
resources are incapable to achieve the aggressive targets. Appointing more employees cannot be
a perfect solution because Property Millionaires is a small size company that has limited capital
access and limited resources to initiate aggressive business strategy. Therefore, it is obvious that
the company will face severe challenges in the near future and the risk exposure calculator raises
red flag against this aggressive sales strategy.
iii) Inexperience of key employees
The threat of inexperience of the employees is also valued maximum in the risk exposure
calculator with 5. There are certainly a range of misunderstanding about skilled employee and
experience of the employees. Amankwah-Amoah, Boso and Antwi-Agyei (2018) articulated that
the experience of the workforce is a determining factor for the success of an organisation.
Staniewski (2016) tried to find out the reason and importance behind the experience of the
employees and found out that profound experience in field helped the employees to identify and
mitigate a problem proactively. However, in case of Property Millionaires, the aggressive sales
growth strategy compels the organisation to recruit more employees. An interesting fact is that
Property Millionaires also reduces its standard of employment for recruiting more people even
who do not have previous experience in sales. It creates a big question about the ability and
potentiality of the organisation to meet its objectives properly. As a result of that threat in
inexperience employees can result to obstruct the efforts towards meeting the objectives.
Therefore, the overall growth risk point is 14.

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3.0 Pressure points due to culture
i) Rewards for entrepreneurial risk taking
The rewards for entrepreneurial risk taking is valued with 4 that identifies high volatility
of the organisation in the organisational culture. As per the research of Wickramasinghe and
Sajeevani (2018) it can be stated that rewards is definitely a motivational factor for the
employees that pushes them to make more efforts to meet the organisational objectives. On the
contrary, Buchanan (2015) pointed out that it is important to understand that the purpose of the
rewards is very important for the success of the organisation. From this sceptical argument about
the vitality and efficacy of rewards in organisational performance, it can be mentioned that for
Property Millionaires the use of rewards in brisk taking has negative impact on the organisational
culture. Taking risk does not mean implementing innovative ideas and developing skills.
Therefore, taking unnecessary risks can easily jeopardize the sustainable business practice of
Property Millionaires. Henceforth, it is very essential to acknowledge the vulnerability of taking
unnecessary risks and Property Millionaires is also going to take serious challenges in business
in near future due to lack of positive organisational culture that the organisation places over the
workforce.
ii) Executive resistance to bad news
The executive resistance to bad news is marked with 3 in the risk exposure calculator
that shows that Property Millionaires is facing serious risks in aggressive sales growth due to the
lack of executive resistance to bad news. In reference to the argument of Blount and Hill (2015)
it can be stated that the role of the business executives is to lead the team to gain the desired
outcome. Therefore, support from the executives is highly required. Moreover, Helin and Jabri

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(2016) pointed out the experience of the executives made them highly suitable to sort out any
kind of operation related issues. However, in case of Property Millionaires the scenario is way
different. First of all, the regional managers does not have enough understanding related to the
operational activities of the consultants. To be specific the regional managers are not capable to
understand the complex process and the consultation process. It means the consultants are of
their own and have no guidance from the seniors. It makes the situation worsen where the
regional managers does not want to hear any bad news. Therefore, any kind of issues that the
consultants are facing will never get resolved. As a result of that the risk calculator marks shows
the severity of the issue.
iii) Level of internal competition
Internal competition in workplace is not a bad thing to practice. It helps the organisation
to expand and increase its efficiency by making a healthy competitiveness among the employees.
Kantor and Streitfeld (2015) opined that the more the workplace follow healthy competition the
more it will get positive results as benefits of the organisation. In case of Property Millionaires,
there is intense competitiveness among the employees. The senior management also introduces a
reward system that increases competition among the employees to a great extent. Apparently the
measures are good but in reality lack of support from the regional managers and no well-defined
information channel between the regional manager and the senior management make the
situation out of control. The purpose of using competitiveness in workplace and monitoring and
controlling the competitiveness have no relation in Property Millionaires. Therefore, it will never
be a good practice and increase threats to a great extent. Therefore, the risk exposure calculator
marks it with 4 marks. All over the risks in culture of Property Millionaires is 11 which is still on
the verge of catastrophe.

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4.0 Pressure points due to information management
i) Transaction complexity and velocity
The customers in Property Millionaires have good experience as a first time user of the
service. The transaction process is very user friendly and it takes less time for the customers to
pay. As a result of that they feel good as a fresh customer. In this regard, Rodriguez, Peterson
and Krishnan (2018) articulated that using user friendly interface for the customers was a
strategic tool for the small and medium scale companies in order to attract more customers. For
Property Millionaires also the same practice can be seen. However, lack of supervision from the
regional managers questions the efficacy of the problem or to some extent tampers the
transparent transaction process by the consultants. Therefore, the risk exposure calculator scores
3 by identifying the lack of monitoring process in Property Millionaires.
ii) Gaps in diagnostic performance
There is huge gap in the diagnostic performance where the regional managers does not
have any channel to discuss the issues and problems with the senior management. Therefore,
they feel isolated to take all the necessary decisions. High responsibility on the regional
managers makes the situation problematic for them to handle. Patrutiu-Baltes (2016) opined that
a proper communication channel between the senior management and the subordinate managers
is highly required for continue the flow of tasks and enhances the organisational efficacy.
However, heavy pressure on the regional managers in Property Millionaires to conduct and
control the operations without having support from the senior management is certainly created
obstruction in getting desired result from the consultants. As a result of that high chance of risk
can be developed in Property Millionaires. The risk exposure calculator put 2 marks for this

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threat as other problems are far more valued for safeguarding the business sustainability of
Property Millionaires.
iii) Degree of decentralised decision making
Risk in decision making at Property Millionaires is valued with 3 marks that identifies the
importance of overall association in decision making process. However, the senior management
or precisely the CEO of Property Millionaires is the only person to take all the decisions. As a
result of that a centralised top-down decision making can be seen in Property Millionaires.
However, Reymen et al. (2017) argued that for the current business organisations including the
employees in decision making certainly played pivotal role which was linked with the
organisational performance as well. The employees feel as a part of the organisation due to the
inclusion in important decision making. It seems a great problem for Property Millionaires for
future sustainability because it can demoralise the employees to a great extent.
5.0 Conclusion
The above discussion is trying to depict the potential threat for Property Millionaires on
the basis of the weightage of the issues. The risk exposure calculator helps greatly to identify the
risks on a priority basis and it aids the management to deal with the risks on its valuation. There
are three distinct butt interlinked risk factors that the risk exposure calculator identifies in the
form of growth, culture and the information management. The overall risks of Property
Millionaires is 33 out of 45 which proves that the organisation has a number of serious risks that
can be easily jeopardize the sustainable business practice of Property Millionaires. Therefore, it
can be concluded that a range of recommendations are required in order to resolve those issues as
soon as possible.

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6.0 Recommendation
The recommendations are as follows,
 It is important for the senior management of Property Millionaires to evaluate the
potentiality of the existing workforce and reshape the strategy.
 Good relationship between the regional managers and the consultants should be
implemented.
 A decentralised decision making has to be implemented in order to incorporate all the
active players in to organisational development.

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Appendix
Figure 1: Risk exposure calculator
(Created by the author)