Preface

Modern globalization has accelerated business and increased competition among economies. Due to excessive industrialization, the world has disturbed its natural ecology, raising concerns about the environment. To mitigate environmental problems, corporate environmental responsibility measures have been suggested. In this regard, emerging economies have also compelled their organizations to adopt risk management measures emphatically. Sustainability is addressed globally due to the opposition between growing needs and limited natural resources. In this context of sustainable development and the dynamics of the business environment, risk management becomes an important process for organizations. An efficient risk management process contributes to achieving organizational goals and vision. These strategic elements, organizational objectives, missions, and visions are important for stakeholders. The sustainable development of an organization contributes to local, national, and global development. One cannot talk about development over a long period of time if organizational risks are not addressed. There are a few innovative methods for approaching risks and several attitudes towards risks. These nuances depend on the human personality and the organizational culture.

Significantly, firms adopt risk management strategies that not only sustain performance but also augment the firms' reputation. However, it is significant to analyze the role of corporate governance, which can accelerate risk management measures and orient upper management teams towards organizational environmental measures so that firms' reputation and growth may be sustained in the future.

This book identifies strategic challenges for risk management assessment and practices, examines potential factors that affect business growth, and offers new opportunities for enterprises. It covers several important topics in the context of global sustainability and environmental dynamics, as follows:

**Chapter 1,** "Insurance Business and Sustainable Development," discusses how to control organizational risks as effectively as possible. It presents aspects of insurance in the context of sustainable development.

**Chapter 2,** "Environmentally Influenced Risk and Sustainable Management of State Controlled Transportation Assets", demonstrates the relationship between environmentally influenced risk management and sustainable management of state-controlled transportation assets in the United States. It addresses several key parameters including risk assessment, financial risk, and organizational behavior.

**Chapter 3,** "Risk Mitigation: Sustainable Management in Construction Industry" addresses important management issues in the construction industry. The construction industry is an important field in the context of current dynamics and customer requirements.

**Chapter 4,** "Basel IV: The Challenge of II Pillar for Risk Management Function", is based on the Supervisory Review and Evaluation Process (SREP) conducted annually by the supervisory authorities to verify that each bank (Significant/Less Significant) has implemented strategies, processes, capital, and liquidity assessment processes appropriate to the business model and overall planning activity and risk governance system.

**Chapter 5,** "Risk Management in the Area of Major Industrial Accident Prevention in the EU and Slovak Republic", is an important chapter for the development of European and national strategies. This chapter considers the latest approaches and presents an important study for risk management.

**Chapter 6,** "Risk Analysis in Engineering Projects", addresses the most important aspects of risk management in projects. The bibliographic study is an important foundation for experts in this field.

**Chapter 7,** "Social Impact Returns. Filling the Finance Gap with Data Value", presents a framework to measure social impact filling the finance gap. It demonstrates the range of opportunities that can be achieved by adopting data and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a core strategy.

**Chapter 8,** "Dealing with Unforeseen Circumstances. Implication of Risk Management in the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency", addresses important topics for the manufacturing industry. Public health is a major topic of interest in the business environment.

**Chapter 9,** "Risk Communication in the Age of COVID-19", is an important chapter in the current context. The pandemic period developed new forms of communication and profiles of individuals. This chapter presents the issue of communication risks.

**Chapter 10,** "Corporate Governance and ERM for SMEs Viability in Italy", addresses an important issue in the context of sustainable development. It addresses topics such as the role of the board of statutory auditors, the role of auditors, the Internal Auditor (IA) and the Internal Control and Risk Management System (IC and ERM), monitoring ESG risks in SMEs, and risk of overlapping and possible remedies.

**Chapter 11,** "The Management of Tax Risks in Mergers and Acquisitions - The Importance of Tax Due Diligence", provides an overview of the responsibility of company administrators in the management of tax risks and the importance of due diligence to mitigate them, especially in mergers and acquisitions.

**Chapter 12,** "Fuzzy Approach Model to Portfolio Risk Response Strategies", addresses an important topic. The first objective focuses on maximizing profits and efficiency of risk responses, and the second objective aims at minimizing project direct costs including machinery, human, and material costs to implement proper risk responses over a planning horizon under uncertainty.

**Chapter 13,** "Determinants of Job Satisfaction of Accounting Professionals in Tunisia", presents a study with global applicability. Determining the variables that contribute to job satisfaction is an area of interest for all entrepreneurs.

**Chapter 14,** "Discerning the Strategies for Exiting Your Business", addresses elements of strategic management. These elements are very important for achieving the vision and developing realistic strategic objectives.

**Chapter 15,** "Assessment of Top Management Commitment and Support on IS Risk Management Implementation in the Business Organization" presents directions and approaches to information management and technology. The information system for risk management implementation is an important direction in preparing the industry for the 5.0 revolution and for the dynamics of information technology.

This book is a useful resource t for specialists in the field as well as researchers. It also offers a series of introductory aspects for those who want to learn the concepts of risk.

The editors would like to acknowledge the help of all those involved in this project. Without their support, this book would not have been possible. First, we thank the contributing authors for their time and expertise. Second, we wish to acknowledge the valuable contributions of the reviewers whose comments improved the quality, coherence, and content of each of the chapters.

> **Dr. Muddassar Sarfraz** College of International Students, Wuxi University, Wuxi, PR China

**Larisa Ivascu** Professor, Faculty of Management in Production and Transportation, Politehnica University of Timisoara, Timisoara, Romania

Section 1


*2.5. Antimicrobial Susceptibility Pattern of the Confirmed E. coli Strains*

The antimicrobial susceptibility test of the confirmed *E. coli* isolates was determined by the disc diffusion technique on Mueller Hinton agar (MHA) plates, following Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI) [26] guidelines. Fresh culture from the glycerol stock was streaked onto nutrient agar plates and incubated at 37 ◦C for 24 h. Colonies were transferred into a test tube of 5 mL of normal sterile saline, and adjusted to attain turbidity matching the 0.5 McFarland standard. The isolates were then streaked onto MHA plates, and disks infused with antimicrobial agents were dispensed onto the inoculated plates and incubated for 18 to 24 h at 37 ◦C. After incubation, the zones of inhibition were measured, and isolates were categorized as resistant or susceptible to the antimicrobial agents used, while those that were intermediate were considered resistant. The following eight commercial antibiotic discs: Amikacin (30 μg), ampicillin (10 μg), ceftazidime (30 μg), ciprofloxacin (5 μg), gentamicin (10 μg), norflaxacin (10 μg), tetracycline (30 μg), and trimethoprim (10 μg) were tested against the confirmed isolates.

#### *2.6. Interpretation of Multiple Antibiotic-Resistance Index (MARI)*

The multiple antibiotic resistance index (MAR Index) of isolates that exhibited resistance against the actions of three or more antibiotics which were tested was expressed as *x*/*y*, where *x* indicates the sum of antibiotics to which the isolate was resistant to and *y* indicates the number of antibiotics tested against the isolate. Multidrug resistance was interpreted as the display of resistance to three or more antibiotics used, whereas the MARI (multidrug antibiotic-resisted indices) of the isolates was approximated, as previously described by Krumperman [27]. The multiple antibiotic resistance index (MARI) = *w*/(*uxv*), where: *w* is the summation of antibiotics resistance scores of the isolates; *u* is the sum of antibiotics used; and *v* is the sum of isolates which resisted the antibiotics employed.

#### **3. Results**