Risks and uncertainty in enterprise management: definition, approaches to evaluation

Currently, the life of any enterprise is fraught with various risks. The existence of risk is directly related to the presence of uncertainty. The article proposes an approach to the formation of the concept of risk in enterprise management. A comparative analysis of the author's interpretations of risk is carried out on such aspects as: definitions, causes, assessment and consequences. Based on a generalization of known approaches, the author's definition of risk is proposed. The connection of the concept of «risk» with probability, the effect of decision maker and uncertainty is shown. An analysis of the main sources of uncertainty has made it possible to identify several interrelated factors generating uncertainty: factors related to the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of information; accidental factors; counteraction factors. A scheme of the relationship between the causes of uncertainty and risk is proposed, the similarity and difference between these concepts is shown. It is shown that the possibility of a quantitative assessment of the probability of the implementation of certain events makes it possible to distinguish between risk situations and situations of uncertainty. Approaches and methods of risk assessment are considered.