Thesis Abstract

Risk is at the center of life itself. How pharmaceutical companies successfully implements an Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) programme, to identify and manage potential risks, can mean the difference between financial freedom and financial despair. As a practical option for managing risk, it is associated with a number of factors that hamper its smooth flow. These difficulties manifest when companies lack knowledge of ERM Frameworks; still using the traditional ways of risk management. The problems become more compounded when the adopted ERM frameworks would not fully be utilized; as in the case with pharmaceutical companies in Nigeria. The researcher then quickening to use this piece of study, to evaluate the use of ERM in pharmaceutical companies, with its associated prospects, challenges and problems. The researcher sourced data from the primary and secondary sources of data for this work, using works by other authors and information from the oral interview carried out on the respondent. Despite the new accreditation guidelines and a provincial strategy for managing risk, adherence to effective risk management remains suboptimal in our pharmaceutical companies and in many industries. It was discovered that although ERM is being implemented in Nigerian pharmaceutical industry, the level of implementation is either very low or cannot be easily ascertained. Also, it was further discovered, that there exist an insignificant but positive relationship between ERM and total assets and liabilities as proxies for firm size and leverage. The researcher made recommendation from the findings of this works that there is need to encourage and adopt the full use of ERM frameworks in industries and there is need for more explicit measures in identifying firms that engage in ERM and those that do not.

Thesis Overview