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The discipline by which an enterprise in any industry assesses, controls, exploits, finance, and monitors risk from all sources for the purpose of increasing the enterprise's short and long term value to its stakeholders.

I can understand the latter half of the sentence from "for the purpose of ... to its stakeholders." For the first half, does it mean an enterprise risk from all of these aspects? How should I cut the sentence so that I can understand it more easily?

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    It's not a complete sentence. It lacks a verb that complements "discipline."
    – Robusto
    Sep 19, 2017 at 19:15
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    It's not a complete sentence, but a 'heavy' noun phrase.
    – BillJ
    Sep 19, 2017 at 19:20
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    @MvLog: If it's a sentence, what verb governs the subject?
    – Robusto
    Sep 19, 2017 at 21:06
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    @MvLog: Nope. "The discipline" is the subject.
    – Robusto
    Sep 19, 2017 at 21:24
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    @MvLog: Why would you even talk about that? The claim here is that the text is a sentence and I maintain it's not. You claimed it is yet you can't find a verb to bind everything together as a single sentence. The reason you can't is because one doesn't exist.
    – Robusto
    Sep 19, 2017 at 23:20

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Actually as long as it is, it's still just a sentence fragment. This looks like a definition of some term, like "fiduciary responsibility" in which case the complete sentence would be:

"Fiduciary responsibility" is defined as [the discipline by which ...]

The other possibility is that "discipline" is the subject, in which case the verb and any direct object are missing.

[The discipline by which ...] is lacking in this organization.

This is probably why you find the sentence confusing. Once you see the complete context, hopefully, it makes more sense.

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  • That makes sense. So risk is a verb describing an enterprise. But the main sentence lacks a verb to describe the discipline, isn't it?
    – user8314628
    Sep 19, 2017 at 19:29
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    @user8314628 Yep, although I think it's more likely the subject is missing. Dictionaries often present word meanings in this way, since the subject is implied. "[X is] the way the enterprise measures risk and increases profits."
    – Andrew
    Sep 19, 2017 at 19:30

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