Managing governance, risk and compliance for post-crisis regulatory change: a model of IS capabilities for financial organizations

The 2008-2009 financial crisis and related organizational and economic failures have meant that financial organizations are faced with a ‘tsunami’ of new regulatory obligations. This environment provides new managerial challenges as organizations are forced to engage in complex and costly remediation projects with short deadlines. Drawing from a longitudinal study conducted with nine financial institutions over twelve years, this paper identifies nine IS capabilities which underpin activities for managing regulatory themed governance, risk and compliance efforts. The research shows that many firms are now focused on meeting the Regulators’ deadlines at the expense of developing a strategic, enterprise-wide connected approach to compliance. Consequently, executives are in danger of implementing siloed compliance solutions within business functions. By evaluating the maturity of their IS capabilities which underpin regulatory adherence, managers have an opportunity to develop robust operational architectures and so are better positioned to face the challenges derived from shifting regulatory landscapes.

Inferring the structure of the solar corona and inner heliosphere during the Maunder minimum using global thermodynamic magnetohydrodynamic simulations

Observations of the Sun’s corona during the space era have led to a picture of relatively constant, but cyclically varying solar output and structure. Longer-term, more indirect measurements, such as from 10Be, coupled by other albeit less reliable contemporaneous reports, however, suggest periods of significant departure from this standard. The Maunder Minimum was one such epoch where: (1) sunspots effectively disappeared for long intervals during a 70 yr period; (2) eclipse observations suggested the distinct lack of a visible K-corona but possible appearance of the F-corona; (3) reports of aurora were notably reduced; and (4) cosmic ray intensities at Earth were inferred to be substantially higher. Using a global thermodynamic MHD model, we have constructed a range of possible coronal configurations for the Maunder Minimum period and compared their predictions with these limited observational constraints. We conclude that the most likely state of the corona during—at least—the later portion of the Maunder Minimum was not merely that of the 2008/2009 solar minimum, as has been suggested recently, but rather a state devoid of any large-scale structure, driven by a photospheric field composed of only ephemeral regions, and likely substantially reduced in strength. Moreover, we suggest that the Sun evolved from a 2008/2009-like configuration at the start of the Maunder Minimum toward an ephemeral-only configuration by the end of it, supporting a prediction that we may be on the cusp of a new grand solar minimum.