Stefan Hunziker

Stefan
Hunziker

Professor of Risk Management at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. I study how organizations make decisions under uncertainty, and how risk management can make those decisions better.

Research and publications LinkedIn
A range of possible outcomes and a decision tolerance threshold The graphic shows a range of possible outcomes and an illustrative limit of what a decision can tolerate. What the decision can tolerate
Risk management creates value when it improves a decision, not when it merely completes a process. Uncertainty has a range. What matters is what that range means for the decision.

What I work on

Enterprise risk management

How organizations move from administering risk registers to risk management that actually informs management and board decisions.

Decision quality under uncertainty

How uncertainty can be built into strategic planning, budgeting and investment decisions instead of being added afterwards.

Risk communication

Why technically sound risk information so often changes nothing, and how reports, conversations and narratives can make uncertainty matter in management and board discussions.

Risk quantification

How ranges, scenarios and probabilities can describe uncertainty more meaningfully than heat maps and point estimates, and where their limits lie.

How I approach risk management

I do not start with a risk management framework. I start with the decisions that matter, then ask which components can improve them.

Decision-oriented

Risk management should improve consequential management and board decisions under uncertainty. Processes, reports and governance structures are means to that end, not ends in themselves.

Component-based

I do not treat ERM as one indivisible system. I break it into specific components and ask what each one is supposed to accomplish and through which mechanism it should work.

Evidence-informed

Methods are assessed by the strength and type of support behind them, their limitations and their fit with the decision problem. Established practice or inclusion in a framework is not, by itself, evidence of decision value.

Different methods require different tests. A quantitative method can have a strong formal basis without proving better organizational outcomes; a heuristic can be useful even when outcome evidence is limited. I therefore make the basis and limits of each component explicit.

Purpose
What concrete problem is this component meant to solve?
Mechanism
Why should it improve the analysis, conversation or decision?
Evidence
What supports that mechanism — formal theory, empirical evidence or both — and where are its limits?
Decision impact
Which decision should improve, and how can we tell in the organization whether the component actually helps?

About

I am Professor of Risk Management at the Lucerne School of Business of Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU), where I lead the Competence Center Risk & Compliance Management at the Institute of Financial Services Zug (IFZ). I also serve as Head of Research at the IFZ and co-direct the MSc in International Financial Management.

I earned my Ph.D. at the University of St. Gallen and completed my habilitation (Dr. habil.) in Management and Organization Sciences at the University of Sopron in 2024. Within this broader field, my research specialization is Enterprise and Strategic Risk Management, Decision Quality and decision-making under uncertainty. In 2017, I was a visiting scholar at Georgia State University.

My work connects research, teaching and practice around a central question: how can risk management help organizations make better consequential decisions under uncertainty?

Portrait of Stefan Hunziker

Work with organizations

Since 2006, I have coached and advised organizations at executive level in risk management and internal control.

My work includes the design and review of enterprise risk management, risk reporting for management and boards, and facilitated discussions on strategic decisions under uncertainty. I work with companies, hospitals, public-sector organizations and non-profits, bringing current research into practice rather than applying a single standard framework.

The aim is not to make risk management more elaborate. It is to make the components that matter more useful for the decisions an organization actually has to make.

Selected publications

HSLU · IFZ Corporate Crises in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland ERM Report 2025
  • 2026 Entscheidungsorientiertes Risikomanagement: Wie Risikomanagement zum strategischen Entscheidungspartner wird With Kristian Giesen. Risk, Fraud & Compliance (ZRFC).
  • 2026 Extremrisiken im Risikomanagement: Quantifizierung und ihre Grenzen With Kristian Giesen. Book chapter in Neue Wege der Unternehmenssteuerung.
  • 2026 Risikomanagement: Vom Glaubenssystem zum strategischen Führungsinstrument Book chapter in Von der Strategie zum Resilienzmanagement – Die Zukunft nachhaltig gestalten.
  • 2025 Enterprise Risk Management: Modern Approaches to Balancing Risk and Reward, 3rd edition Springer Gabler. Publisher page
  • 2025 ERM Report 2025: Corporate Crises in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland With Ute Vanini, Karin Altendorfer, Aron Schalk and Smilla Antonia Nölle. HSLU / HAW Kiel. Study page
  • 2025 Return on Compliance: Success Factors of Compliance and Their Contribution to Corporate Value With Mirjam Gruber-Durrer, Christian Hauser and Jeanine Bretti Rainalter. Springer. Publisher page
  • 2024 Risikoberichterstattung: Entscheidungsrelevante Information oder formalistisches Ritual? GRC aktuell 3/2024. Article page
  • 2024 Research Design in Business and Management: A Practical Guide for Students and Researchers, 2nd edition With Michael Blankenagel. Springer Gabler. Publisher page
  • 2019 Mit Enterprise Risk Management die Entscheidungsqualität erhöhen With Werner Gleißner. Expert Focus. On integrating opportunities and risks into value-oriented management decisions.

Complete publication record at HSLU  ·  Google Scholar

Selected research projects

More research projects at HSLU

Selected ideas

Shorter pieces that capture how my thinking about risk management has developed.

  • 2026 ERM has two tasks Financial resilience and strategic decision quality are connected, but they follow different logics and need different tools.
  • 2026 Mandated Tools, Missing Impact: Rethinking Risk Matrices Why a widely used governance artifact should not be mistaken for decision-relevant risk analysis.
  • 2026 When Good Risk Information Changes Nothing Why risk communication is not packaging at the end of analysis, but part of risk management itself.
  • 2021 Enterprise Risk Management: Glaubenssystem oder Führungsinstrument? A critique of treating accepted frameworks and practices as evidence of effectiveness, and an argument for stronger links to decision theory.

Speaking

I speak regularly at professional and academic events on enterprise risk management, decision-making under uncertainty, risk quantification and risk communication. Selected talks include:

Selected recordings

Selected conversations and recorded sessions on Enterprise Risk Management, decision-making under uncertainty and the role of risk management in practice.

Professional roles & affiliations

External engagements are undertaken in accordance with my responsibilities at HSLU.