Operational risk escalation: An empirical analysis of UK call centres

Abstract

The paper investigates operational risk reporting behaviour and policy dissemination in the selling of financial products by a major British insurance company's call centres. The analysis of the predispositions of call centre employees to escalate operational risks within their working environment will be measured using the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). The empirical analysis indicates that the effects of ‘Attitude’ and ‘Perceived Behavioural Control’ significantly affected an employee's intention to escalate operational risk events. Furthermore, the education and training provided to employees has enabled them to better report operational risk losses/events due to increased certainty of their operational risk losses/events knowledge. The study provides a foundation for future research examining the measurement of ‘people risk’, the collection of valid operational risk data and encourages policy makers to work alongside the insurance industry to spread best practice in capturing valid data, especially in the light of Solvency II implementation.