Conclusions: The Future of Political Risk Assessment

Abstract

The case was made in Part One of this book that political risk assessment, as a distinct outgrowth of the environmental scanning activity, has an important influence on corporate profitability. Part Two analyzed the evolution of political risk assessment, both as a corporate function and as an academic sub-discipline. Examining the assessment function in American, Canadian and West European corporations, it was found that: i) the corporations’ sector of business and individual corporate structure both have an important influence on the way the corporation organizes the political risk assessment functions; ii) the function itself appears to be going through a ‘shake out’ phase, with increasing emphasis being placed on the business implications of political risk rather than on risk assessment per se; and iii) that the major challenge for the future is the better integration of political risk assessments into corporate decision making. I look at each of these in succession, below.