Enterprise Risk Management Implementation and Autonomy Status in Malaysian Public Universities

Enterprise risk management has been the centre of focus for many private organizations especially financial institutions. Like their counterparts, non-profit organizations are not safe from risk exposures and it is more crucial when their funding originated from the public. There is little work done on the risk management implementation in the public organizations and research is needed to find out whether these organizations are serious in managing their risk and do they have a formal structure and framework to handle that. This study examines whether autonomy status award is a reason why public universities implement ERM. Based on the data gathered from a total of 21 public universities, this study found that most of them do have a formal risk management structure in place and some of them have even appointed a specific person (risk officer) specializing in handling the ERM activities of the universities. Our early findings show that an autonomy status is an important determinant on the decision of the public universities to implement ERM. This paper would provide the foundation for more advanced research in the ERM implementation in non-profit organizations