Risk Management In China Research Articles

Oil Spill Response Capability Building in China and Her Road Map

ABSTRACT In recent decades, China's strong economic development has brought higher risk of oil spill at sea from ships, oil exploration and land. Accordingly, China government has enacted some new laws and policies such as the compulsory requirements on certain ships calling Chinese ports enter into a preparedness and response contract with a pre-approved response organization, up to now, there are already 137 private oil spill response organizations along the coastline. Also, the port operators are required to invest on oil spill response equipments depending on the result of risk assessment. At the same time, the central government has invested more 20 stockpiles along the sea port and Yangzi River. Nowadays, the amount of clean-up equipments has reached to a historical high level, and the total investment in recent three years is near ten times more than those ten years ago. Therefore, scientific evaluation of the risk and its spatial distribution of oil spill, and development of the reasonable and effective oil spill response capability planning, are the major demands for marine environmental risk management in China. To solve the issues above, a model with oil spill risk evaluation and multi-objective response resources layout is proposed for multi–sources risk. Hopefully, the model will be used to develop the national plan for National Contingency Plan for oil spill capability building in China.

Customs Risk Management Based on Outlier Data Mining

By using outlier data mining, this paper studied customs risk management in China. Our research contents are summarized as follows: First, we study the status of Customs risk management and we study other scholars’ research of the outlier data mining. Second, we introduce index of outliers and we use outlier data mining to establish a risk estimation model. Finally, we test the affectivity of this model by empirical analysis.

Pharmaceuticals in Tap Water: Human Health Risk Assessment and Proposed Monitoring Framework in China

Background: Pharmaceuticals are known to contaminate tap water worldwide, but the relevant human health risks have not been assessed in China.Objectives: We monitored 32 pharmaceuticals in Chinese tap water and evaluated the life-long human health risks of exposure in order to provide information for future prioritization and risk management.Methods: We analyzed samples (n = 113) from 13 cities and compared detected concentrations with existing or newly-derived safety levels for assessing risk quotients (RQs) at different life stages, excluding the prenatal stage.Results: We detected 17 pharmaceuticals in 89% of samples, with most detectable concentrations (92%) at < 50 ng/L. Caffeine (median–maximum, nanograms per liter: 24.4–564), metronidazole (1.8–19.3), salicylic acid (16.6–41.2), clofibric acid (1.2–3.3), carbamazepine (1.3–6.7), and dimetridazole (6.9–14.7) were found in ≥ 20% of samples. Cities within the Yangtze River region and Guangzhou were regarded as contamination hot spots because of elevated levels and frequent positive detections. Of the 17 pharmaceuticals detected, 13 showed very low risk levels, but 4 (i.e., dimetridazole, thiamphenicol, sulfamethazine, and clarithromycin) were found to have at least one life-stage RQ ≥ 0.01, especially for the infant and child life stages, and should be considered of high priority for management. We propose an indicator-based monitoring framework for providing information for source identification, water treatment effectiveness, and water safety management in China.Conclusion: Chinese tap water is an additional route of human exposure to pharmaceuticals, particularly for dimetridazole, although the risk to human health is low based on current toxicity data. Pharmaceutical detection and application of the proposed monitoring framework can be used for water source protection and risk management in China and elsewhere.

Corporate social responsibility and food risk management in China; a management perspective

This study aims to find relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and food risk management (FRM), and other affecting factors of FRM in China. This is considered from the perspective of food company managers located in 161 food companies surveyed in Henan Province and Wuhan City, China. The results indicate that the company's attitude (defensive/passive/proactive) to CSR affects its attitude to food risks, and the CSR performance of a company affects the effectiveness of its FRM measures. With better CSR performance, a company experiences less risk than the ones with poor CSR performance. Among other FRM affecting factors, the budget allocated to FRM is the direct affecting factor, and the manager's perceived importance of FRM for improving organizational behaviour is causal to both the best and poor FRM practices. Finally policy suggestions are made.

Introduction to special issue on “Recent advances of engineering management and risk management in China”

PurposeAs a traditional area, engineering management has always been at the core of the research study in academia. In the current uncertain world, more and more attention is paid to risk management. New risks in many practical engineering management problems require new computational methods and tools. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the state‐of‐the‐art research in engineering management and risk management in China.Design/methodology/approachThe collected papers are briefly reviewed and positioned in existing work.FindingsThe special issue includes a variety of perspectives on engineering management and risk management from the Great China area.Originality/valueThe paper shows that all the papers address interesting research problems.

Lessons Learned From Major Environmental Accidents and Regulations on Hazard Control in China

China is suffering from severe environmental accidents that many have catastrophic impacts on public health and the environment. It is urgent to update the standards for environmental accidents prevention in China. This paper analyses the causes of fifty-three major accidents that happened in 2008 to obtain insight to help prevent similar events in the future. The results show that production accidents, which were mainly triggered by process analysis, training and human error, were the dominant causes of environmental accidents in China. In addition, current regulations on the control of environmental accident hazards and their implementation are also presented in this paper, which comprise legal requirements centering on hazardous chemicals, industrial safety evaluation, risk analysis and preparation of emergency plans. Based on our analysis, some key points that should be developed in future environmental accident hazard control measures are put forward with the aim of shedding light on decision making and risk management in China.

RISK MANAGEMENT PRACTICE IN CHINA'S PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP PROJECTS

Project risks were not properly managed in the many past Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects in China. Although numerous research studies have been conducted on risk management in China's PPP projects, the realization of risk management in China's construction industry especially in PPP projects with high risk exposure and complicated contract structure has hitherto not been well studied. This paper therefore attempted to examine the current use of risk management in China's PPP projects by an empirical survey. The results indicated that the use of risk management was inadequate; qualitative risk analysis methods were preferred to quantitative and semi-quantitative methods; risk management usage in the execution was found to be much higher than in the planning, conceptual or termination stage; interviewees were unfamiliar with most of the risk identification and assessment tools. All above could be partly due to the project nature, but more fundamentally due to the local industrial culture. The absence of risk management culture was found to be the dominant factor which limited the implementation of risk management in practice. Recommendations to alleviate the difficulties of risk management were thereafter provided in this paper.

Dairy Farmers' Risk Perception and Risk Management in China - Evidence from Hebei Province and Inner Mongolia

Dairy Farmers' Risk Perception and Risk Management in China - Evidence from Hebei Province and Inner Mongolia

Problems of Mega-events Engineering Risk Management in China

Keep in pace with the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 Shanghai Expo, engineering events of different types and sizes are coming to China more than it had ever happened during years. Obviously, these could all cause safety problems. To organize the event perfectly, a lot of questions occur: How to provide the best safety to everyone participate in our event? How to deal with the emergencies during the event? These questions are the most important element of holding a successful event. This paper discusses the necessity of engineering risk management during events.

Legislative Impact on Lending: Credit Risk Management in China

The Chinese government established the Act on Commercial Banks 1995 to enforce and regulate commercial banking activities. The government envisaged that the Act, together with other bank reforms, would improve credit risk management practice among commercial banks, hence, prompting the banks to reduce and ultimately stop local government directed policy lending to state-owned enterprises (SOEs). This paper examines the lending behavior of a government-controlled commercial bank before and after the passage of the Act. We find that the bank tightened control of the credit risk of borrowers after the passage of the Act. We also find that SOEs are charged a rate of interest higher than that charged to private firms.

Managing production outsourcing risks in China's apparel industry: a case study of two apparel retailers

PurposeThis paper aims to examine how Chinese apparel retailers manage their production outsourcing risks and why they elect to manage those risks in a particular manner.Design/methodology/approachThe investigation used the case study approach to explore factors driving two Chinese apparel retailers operating in different market environments to manage their production outsourcing risks.FindingsThe selection of production outsourcing risk management strategies hinges on what apparel retailers view as the most important value their products provide to customers. Product values were linked to specific product characteristics as well as the market environment in which the apparel retailers operated. The retailer that regarded product quality as a key value driver was found to place emphasis on manufacturer selection and use of a formal contract for process control. The retailer that viewed newness and variety as a value driver opted to cultivate a strong, committed business relationship based on Guanxi to achieve speed‐to‐market.Research limitations/implicationsAs a case study research, the findings of this study have their limitations in generalisability. Given that one of the retailers did not invoke Guanxi to cultivate a long‐term business relationship with its outsourced manufacturers, the role of Guanxi in outsourcing risk management in China deserves further exploration, as businesses in China become more globalised.Practical implications/valueThis study grounds mainstream outsourcing strategy literature on operational practice through case studies. It highlights the influence of both product characteristics and market environment in dictating the choice of outsourcing risk management strategies in apparel manufacturing.Originality/valueThe study views outsourcing risk management from the perspective of minimizing outsourcing failures, rather than achieving outsourcing success. It reveals that risk management behavior of apparel retailers was linked to the notion of value protection, which varied according to what they considered as their principal product value drivers.

Research on Risk Sharing Mode of the Construction Project Based on Systems Theory

The construction contracts are the important basis of the project risk management and a reasonable contract system can effectively share engineering risks among various project participants. However, the current situation of risk management in China is not optimistic. Based on the analysis of the existing problems in the risk sharing management, the paper introduces Hall three dimension structure into the engineering fields and establishes a three-dimensional (contract dimension, procedure dimension and logic dimension) space structure of the construction project to elaborate the vital role of the contracts in the project risk management. Finally, the paper attempts to put forward a risk sharing mode centered on contract systems to make a reasonable and effective risk distribution among various project participants

Managing major chemical accidents in China: Towards effective risk information

Chemical industries, from their very inception, have been controversial due to the high risks they impose on safety of human beings and the environment. Recent decades have witnessed increasing impacts of the accelerating expansion of chemical industries and chemical accidents have become a major contributor to environmental and health risks in China. This calls for the establishment of an effective chemical risk management system, which requires reliable, accurate and comprehensive data in the first place. However, the current chemical accident-related data system is highly fragmented and incomplete, as different responsible authorities adopt different data collection standards and procedures for different purposes. In building a more comprehensive, integrated and effective information system, this article: (i) reviews and assesses the existing data sources and data management, (ii) analyzes data on 976 recorded major hazardous chemical accidents in China over the last 40 years, and (iii) identifies the improvements required for developing integrated risk management in China.

Dilemmas of securitization and health risk management in the People's Republic of China: the cases of SARS and avian influenza

Since the SARS epidemic in 2003, the international community has urged Chinese leaders to do more to address infectious diseases. This paper looks at two cases in which the Chinese government securitized infectious disease (SARS and avian influenza) and examines the pros and cons of securitization. It is argued that the reactive mobilization involved in a securitizing move runs counter to the preventive risk management strategy needed to address infectious diseases. Although the Copenhagen School favours desecuritization as a return to normal practices, in the Chinese cases desecuritizing moves proved detrimental, involving cover-ups and restrictions on activists pressing for greater information. The article begins by examining the contributions of the Copenhagen School and sociological theories of risk to conceptualizing the security challenges that pandemics pose. Although analysis of the cases of SARS and avian influenza gives credence to criticisms of this approach, securitization theory proves useful in outlining the different stages in China's reaction to epidemics involving reactive mobilization and subsequent efforts to return to politics as usual. The second section examines securitizing and desecuritizing moves in Chinese responses to SARS and avian influenza. Each case study concludes with an assessment of the consequences for health risk management in China. The reactive mobilization implicit in Chinese securitization moves in the two cases is contrasted with the preventive logic of risk management. A third section draws out the implications of these cases for theories of securitization and risk. It is argued here that when securitization has occurred, risk management has failed. Although Copenhagen School theorists see the return to politics as usual-what they call 'desecuritization'-as optimal, this turns out to be far from the case in China during SARS and avian influenza, where the process involved retribution against whistleblowers and new restrictions on health information. In conclusion, the article argues that alternatives to securitization, such as viewing health as a global public good, would require a prior commitment to risk management within affected states.

Earthquakes and Risk Management in China

ABSTRACT Natural hazards such as floods, tsunamis, wildfire res, droughts, landslides, volcanic eruptions, windstorms, and earthquakes exist everywhere in the world. Earthquakes can pose the greatest threat to human lives, property, and economic development in our society. We review tools that have been developed to assist the earthquake risk management process. We also propose two mechanisms for earthquake risk management: one to possibly better predict earthquake damage magnitude (prediction markets), the other to prepare response team performance (recognition primed decision-making). In conjunction with broader use of information system technology, it may be possible to improve preparedness and response.

Integrating and Prioritizing Environmental Risks in China's Risk Management Discourse

Human society faces a growing number of risks, including both natural disasters and risks that stem from human behavior. This is particularly true in China, which is experiencing rapid social, economic and political transitions. Since the 1970s, China's modernization process has been accompanied by the emergence of an increasing number of man-made risks, in particular environmental pollution, but until very recently, a risk management system did not exist in China. Society was woken up by a series of disasters and accidents, including SARS in 2003, followed by the explosion of avian flu and the chemical spill in the Songhua River in 2005. The last incident in particular finally kicked off the development of a national risk management system (specifically an emergency response system) in China. This paper analyses the status quo of the legislation, institutions and mechanisms for risk management in China and identifies opportunities and strategies for prioritizing and integrating environmental and health risks into the emerging system. The study concludes that although a series of alarming incidents have succeeded in putting risk management issues at the top of the public and political agenda, currently risk management in China can be characterized as reactive and compartmentalized, with a lack of prioritization and integration of policy efforts and resources. There is also a danger that the traditional state-centered approach may fail to create an effective risk management system, which requires improved transparency, accountability, and cross-sectoral coordination. The paper concludes with the proposal of strategies that might enable the environmental authorities to be more effective and reduce their marginalization and isolation.

Risk experience, information, and chance discovery: focusing on earthquakes in China

This paper aims to examine the status quo of people's perception for coping with earthquakes, and the effects of risk experience and risk information to promote risk management in China. Questionnaire surveys were carried out before and after the Sichuan earthquake in China, and the same surveys were also conducted in Japan and the USA. The survey results clarified that the respondents in China showed lower levels of anxiety and higher self-evaluation of risk coping than did the Japanese respondents. The effect of risk experience was observed as the awareness and counter-measures with respect to earthquakes improved, especially among Chengdu's residents after the Sichuan earthquake. Significant effect from obtaining information on actual risk management action was also observed.

Special issue on supply chain risk management in China

Special issue on supply chain risk management in China

Special issue on supply chain risk management in China

Special issue on supply chain risk management in China

Special issue on supply chain risk management in China

Special issue on supply chain risk management in China