Research on risk early-warning system of transitional operation of Africa-related enterprises

The growing business prosperity in African countries has brought new opportunities for enterprises to carry out transnational operation in Africa; however, it may also be accompanied by some transnational operation risks. Enterprises incorrectly identify and analyze these risks, which brings enterprises great uncertainty and huge losses. So enterprises should establish a transnational operation risk management system as soon as possible to ensure the healthy transnational operation in Africa. Based on the survey of 83 experts at African research and the relevant literatures, this paper puts forward a transitional risk early-warning evaluation index system composed of 8 primary indexes including strategic management risk, operation management risk, human resource risk, marketing risk, supply chain management risk, financial management risk, national political risk and macro environmental risk. This paper also determines the weights of the indexes by AHP method and sets the transitional operation risk early-warning evaluation standards based on advice from experts. Furthermore, this paper takes 259 Zhejiang Africa-related enterprises as samples and assesses the transitional operation risk of them by the system established, finds that human resource risks, financial management risks, national political risks and national macro environmental risks are relatively large. Finally, some suggestions are given.   Key words: Risk early-warning index system, transitional operation, Africa-related enterprises.