The mediating effect of enterprise risk management implementation on operational excellence in the Malaysian oil and gas sector : a conceptual framework

Globally, the challenges of the oil and gas industry are unique due to the nature of its operations that is full of risks. Issues like volatile market prices, health and safety, environmental performance and high cost of production are affecting the operational performance of the sector. These problems if left unchecked could change the level of production and revenue generation to the Malaysian government and would as well influence the country's regional position in oil and gas production. As a result, many oil and gas firms including PETRONAS adopted operational excel-lence strategy, but some of the challenges kept re-occurring. It is against this circumstance that this research is aimed at determining the effect of enterprise risk management determinants on operational excellence in the Malaysian oil and gas industry. It is also aimed at exploring the mediating effect of enterprise risk management implementation on such a relationship. The article used a conceptual approach where journal articles, conference papers, professional reports, thesis and term papers were reviewed. Conceptual and theoretical frameworks were proposed in this paper, and literature was reviewed to lay a foundation for empirical research that would establish the relationship between the postulated variables in the study. Dimensions and measurement of the variables in the current study were drawn from earlier researches and recommendations. However, data were not collected, and a result of the analysis was not presented in the paper.