UTILIZATION OF RISK MANAGEMENT WITH IN SMALL BUSINESSES: A CASE STUDY OF 5 SELECTED BLACK OWNED BUSINESSES IN JOHANNESBURG (SOUTH AFRICA)

Abstract

Considering the drive by the South African government to empower small businesses, it is critical to ensure that these small businesses understand their objectives and the risks which they are exposed to. The aim of this study was to assess the utilization of risk management within five selected black owned small businesses. An interview schedule was created to collect information from participants selected from the five small businesses. Deliberate non probability sampling was used to select the participants of the interviews. The data was analyzed by generation of the themes, the responses for each interview were coded in Nvivo 10, for each item, assigning responses to one or more themes based on conceptual fit. The results of the study revealed that the small businesses do understand the importance of risk management to their business success but are not implementing risk management across the business. Three of the small businesses are doing safety risk management at operational level for compliance purposes either to legislation or contractual requirements. There is no form of risk management being done at strategic level which is a critical aspect for business success. In addition to this the study also found out that the small businesses do not have a risk management policy or process in place to give the business direction with regards to risk management.