Human Resource Risk Reporting in the European Union, India, and the U.S.

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Human resources (HR) are a driver and a risk factor for achieving business objectives. HR risks therefore should form part of risk management to derive the realistic risk exposure of a company. As companies have to inform the public of their relevant risks, HR risks should also be disclosed if they are relevant. However, evidence from existing studies shows that HR risks are not gaining the same attention as other risks, e.g. financial risks. This also stems from the fact that as of today there are no widely accepted conceptualizations for HR risk management and only little empirical evidence on the prevalence of HR risks. We therefore analyzed the annual report of listed companies from the EURO STOXX 50 from the European Union, Nifty 50 from India and Dow Jones Industrial Average from the US. We found that 87 companies mention risks in the area of HR, mainly from recruiting, retention and development. One interesting finding of our study is that companies, which apply the COSO enterprise risk management standard, are far more likely to disclose HR risks. Our study also provides a basis for categorizing HR risks for further conceptualizations.