Corporate Decision-Making with Macroeconomic Uncertainty

Performance and Risk Management

Lars Oxelheim and Clas Wihlborg

Macroeconomic turbulence and volatility in financial markets can fatally affect a firm's performance. Very few firms make serious attempts to inform market participants and other outsider stakeholders about the impact of macroeconomic fluctuations, and, worse, top management in most firms cannot differentiate between when a change in performance is due to a change in the firm's intrinsic competitiveness or a reflection of macroeconomic conditions outside their influence. Corporate Decision-Making with Macroeconomic Uncertainty: Performance and Risk Management develops and presents in an easily comprehensible way the essential elements of a corporate strategy for managing uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment. This Macroeconomic Uncertainty Strategy, or MUST, enhances firm value by allowing management and external stakeholders to become better informed about the development of corporate competitiveness in a turbulent macroeconomic environment. The MUST also provides guidelines for how to develop a successful risk management program.

Corporate Decision-Making with Macroeconomic Uncertainty

Performance and Risk Management

Lars Oxelheim and Clas Wihlborg

Description

Macroeconomic turbulence and volatility in financial markets can fatally affect firm's performance. Very few firms make serious attempts to inform market participants and other outsider stakeholders about the impact of macroeconomic fluctuations--manifested as changes in exchange rates, interest rates, inflation rates and stock market returns-- on performance. These stakeholders, as well as financial analysts, must make their own assessments but they generally lack both the required tools and the information to do so. Worse, top management in most firms do not themselves possess the tools to identify whether a change in performance represents a change in the firm's intrinsic competitiveness or a reflection of macroeconomic conditions outside their influence.

Corporate Decision-Making with Macroeconomic Uncertainty: Performance and Risk Management develops and presents in an easily comprehensible way the essential elements of a corporate strategy for managing uncertainty in the macroeconomic environment. This Macroeconomic Uncertainty Strategy, or MUST, enhances firm value by allowing management and external stakeholders to become better informed about the development of corporate competitiveness in a turbulent macroeconomic environment. The MUST also provides guidelines for how to develop a successful risk management program.

This research based book includes methods to identify the impact of macroeconomic fluctuations on cash flows and value, to develop strategies for macroeconomic risk management, to provide informative reports to external stakeholders, to evaluate the relative performance of subsidiaries and business units in multinational companies, and to evaluate performance for purposes of setting executive compensation and of fulfilling the due diligence requirements in an M & A context. The authors' use of value-based management, various performance measurements, the concept of real options, and risk management from the perspective of shareholder wealth maximization, makes the book rich and compelling. They address researchers and students in the field of international business, finance and corporate governance. On the business side, executives with strategic responsibilities, chief financial officers, and bankers who analyze corporate performance and give advice on risk management will benefit from reading this book.

Corporate Decision-Making with Macroeconomic Uncertainty

Performance and Risk Management

Lars Oxelheim and Clas Wihlborg

Preface
1. Macroeconomic Uncertainty in a Corporate Perspective
2. Concepts of Macroeconomic Risk and Exposure
3. Traditional Approaches to Measuring Macroeconomic Exposure
4. Measuring Macroeconomic Impact on the Firm - a Comprehensive Approach
5. Measuring Macroeconomic Exposure - The Case of Volvo Cars
6. Hedging Macroeconomic Exposure
7. Strategies for Exposure Management
8. Recognizing Macroeconomic Fluctuations in Value-Based Management
9. What Shareholders Ought to Know
10. Macroeconomic Uncertainty Strategy (MUST) Analysis - a Summary
References
Index