Search

The article focuses on the closing of the International Paper (IP) Co.'s mill in Mobile, Alabama in December 2000. IP officials had decided to close the plant in order to reduce production in a saturated market. IP manufacturing director Bob Taylor explains that the company has more capacity than it has markets for. The plant closure has affected 800 workers of the company.

This paper explores predicting early signals of business failure using modern models for bankruptcy prediction. It reviews how continuous operations enhance market value, strengthening competitiveness and reputation among stakeholders. The study involves medium and large companies in the Montenegrin market from 2015 to 2020, comprising 30 bankrupt and 70 financially stable firms. Logistic regression is also employed to create a logit model for early detection of bankruptcy signals in companies. This research establishes the empirical validity of modern models in predicting business failure in the Montenegrin market, particularly through logistic regression. Significant indicators, such as the Degree of Indebtedness (DI) and turnover ratio of business assets (TR), exhibit strong predictive power with a p-value less than 0.001 according to Likelihood ratio tests. The paper underscores the potential benefits of bankruptcy prediction for both internal and external stakeholders, especially investors, in enhancing the competitiveness of Montenegro's large and medium-sized companies. Notably, the research contributes by bridging the gap between theory and practice in Montenegro, as bankruptcy prediction models have not been extensively applied in the market. The authors suggest the possible applicability of the created logit model to neighboring countries with similar economic development levels. In that sense, the concept of predicting bankruptcy is positioned as integral to corporate strategy, impacting the overall reduction of bankruptcies. The paper concludes by highlighting its role as a foundation for future research, addressing the literature gap in the application of bankruptcy prediction models in Montenegro. The created logit model, tailored to the specific needs of Montenegrin companies, is presented as an original contribution, emphasizing its potential to strengthen the competitiveness of companies in the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The retail sector is experiencing unprecedented change, from ongoing shifts in shopping behaviour to retailer rationalisation and business failure. Internationally, this is impacting the crucial economic and social role of many highly developed city centres. This paper examines how key stakeholders have responded to the challenges of adapting city centres for the future. Empirically, the paper draws on a series of repurposing schemes across five case study cities. Conceptually, theories of assemblage are used as an analytical framework to understand how heterogeneous networks combine to repurpose city centres. The paper makes a distinctive contribution by revealing symbiosis between mixed uses that challenge traditional high street norms, and suggests that harnessing common desires could underpin productive shared governance and support business communities' efforts to bring vibrancy and enhance resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Business failure and exit are concomitants of business discontinuance which must be extensively studied as businesses such as tutorial centers can experience unfavorable events. This paper investigated the internal (i.e., owner/founder orientations) and external (i.e., compliance with government policies) antecedents leading to business failure and the eventual exit in the shadow education industry in 2013, particularly of Philippine privately owned tutorial centers which are divided into non-registered and registered services. Using the multiple case study approach, empirical findings showed that business failure is primarily caused by internal factors specifically the owner/founder orientations, while non-compliance with government regulations is secondary. The owner/founder orientations were comprised of motivation, characteristics/behavior, skill managerial deficiencies, capabilities, and financial knowledge shortcomings. Nonregistered tutorial centers asserted that only skill/managerial deficiencies and capabilities lead to failure while registered tutorial services perceived all as reasons for business failure. Not complying with government policies can affect more the registered tutorial services than the non-registered centers. Business exit was chosen by all the owners of tutorial centers as a viable option in case of business failure. Future studies can consider obtaining more participants and comprehensively investigating tutorial centers from different countries to enrich cross-country research in shadow education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Artificial intelligence (AI) proves decisive in today's rapidly developing society and is a motive force for the evolution of financial technology. As a subdivision of artificial intelligence research, machine learning (ML) algorithm is extensively used in all aspects of the daily operation and development of the supply chain. Using data mining, deductive reasoning, and other characteristics of machine learning algorithms can effectively help decision-makers of enterprises to make more scientific and reasonable decisions by using the existing financial index data. At present, globalization uncertainties such as COVID-19 are intensifying, and supply chain enterprises are facing bankruptcy risk. In the operation process, practical tools are needed to identify and opportunely respond to the threat in the supply chain operation promptly, predict the probability of business failure of enterprises, and take scientific and feasible measures to prevent a financial crisis in good season. Artificial intelligence decision-making technology can help traditional supply chains to transform into intelligent supply chains, realize smart management, and promote supply chain transformation and upgrading. By applying machine learning algorithms, the supply chain can not only identify potential risks in time and adopt scientific and feasible measures to deal with the crisis but also strengthen the connection and cooperation between different enterprises with the advantage of advanced technology to provide overall operation efficiency. On account of this, the paper puts forward an artificial intelligence-based corporate financial-risk-prevention (FRP) model, which includes four stages: data preprocessing, feature selection, feature classification, and parameter adjustment. Firstly, relevant financial index data are collected, and the quality of the selected data is raised through preprocessing; secondly, the chaotic grasshopper optimization algorithm (CGOA) is used to simulate the behavior of grasshoppers in nature to build a mathematical model, and the selected data sets are selected and optimized for features. Then, the support vector machine (SVM) performs classification processing on the quantitative data with reduced features. Empirical risk is calculated using the hinge loss function, and a regular operation is added to optimize the risk structure. Finally, slime mould algorithm (SMA) can optimize the process to improve the efficiency of SVM, making the algorithm more accurate and effective. In this study, Python is used to simulate the function of the corporate business finance risk prevention model. The experimental results show that the CGOA-SVM-SMA algorithm proposed in this paper achieves good results. After calculation, it is found that the prediction and decision-making capabilities are good and better than other comparative models, which can effectively help supply chain enterprises to prevent financial risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents several research papers related to banks and asset markets during war and depression. "The Great Banks' Depression: Deposit Withdrawals in the German Crisis of 1931," uses monthly balance-sheet data of all major German credit banks, and further analyze deposit withdrawals and bank failures in the German banking and currency crisis of 1931. "International Financial Crisis Contagion in the Interwar Period," examines international financial markets and the links between them using a newly hand-collected data set for more than 300 company stocks, encompassing weekly equity-market observations for 13 countries.

In the early stage of business, which is where most new ventures fail, many entrepreneurs experience discrepancies between their entrepreneurial expectations and business realities. These discrepancies referred to by this paper as an entrepreneurial gap (EG) are, therefore, among other factors, professed to be responsible for the high attrition rate of emerging ventures in South Africa. An oversight in this area of EG, despite the provision of most required resources, may still lead to business failure. This paper argues that there is more yet to be comprehended regarding early-stage business success, concerning the entrepreneur component. The purpose of this paper was to recognize and classify factors responsible for establishing entrepreneurial gaps with the intent to improve the level of preparedness among emerging entrepreneurs. A qualitative approach with in-depth interviews was employed in the data collection. ATLAS ti 8 was used to unpack factors that instigate entrepreneurial gaps while posing challenges to emerging entrepreneurs in the early stage of business. The groups identified were: entrepreneur management, familism and personal management. The findings provide information that is credible to improving the level of preparedness among emerging entrepreneurs, and could be used by mentors, coaches and relevant support structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deteriorated track infrastructure can lead to significant consequences, such as derailment incidents, loss of revenue-service hours, reduced train operation speed, and even failure of the business. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) requires thorough and timely rail track inspections to keep trains operating safely. Approaches using advanced and emerging technologies have become more accessible and broadened their applications. Unfortunately, for Class II (regional) and III (short line) railroads (referred to as local railroads hereafter), there are many obstacles for deployment of these advanced technologies, such as budget constraints and lack of workforce skills. Local railroads are actively seeking cost-effective and efficient approaches to replace conventional methods of manual inspection. This paper, for the first time, aims at identifying the key challenges for local railroads regarding the demand for reliable and timely rail track inspection, lack of advancement of emerging technologies, and unique constraints faced by the local railroads. Through a comprehensive review of the common rail and track geometry defects and state-of-the-art track inspection techniques, this paper critically analyzes the knowledge gaps from four key perspectives from the perspective of local railroad operation: finance, technology, standards, and operation. It is found that automated nondestructive evaluation (NDE) techniques and inexpensive alternatives to the Automated Track Inspection Program (ATIP) may still be cost-feasible and effective for local railroads with future technological and operational upgrades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Labatt brewery of London, Ontario, just 200 kilometres from the Canada–United States border, was the first Canadian brewery to attempt a strategic expansion into the United States. The paper examines the reasons why John Labatt decided to expand into the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. It analyzes both the "push" and "pull" factors that caused him to attempt to sell his ales, porters, and stouts in Chicago. The paper argues that while entrepreneurial factors played a central role in Labatt's geographic expansion into the United States, structural factors were more important as a factor in the ultimate inability of Labatt to capture a share of the Chicago market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Labatt brewery of London, Ontario, just 200 kilometres from the Canada–United States border, was the first Canadian brewery to attempt a strategic expansion into the United States. The paper examines the reasons why John Labatt decided to expand into the United States at the end of the nineteenth century. It analyzes both the "push" and "pull" factors that caused him to attempt to sell his ales, porters, and stouts in Chicago. The paper argues that while entrepreneurial factors played a central role in Labatt's geographic expansion into the United States, structural factors were more important as a factor in the ultimate inability of Labatt to capture a share of the Chicago market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analysed how business age and mortality are related during the first years of life, and tested the different hypotheses proposed in the literature. For that, we used data on US business establishments, with 1-year resolution in the range of age of 0–5 years, in the period 1978–2019, published by the US Census Bureau. First, we explored the adaptation of classical techniques of survival analysis (the life table and Peto–Turnbull methods) to business survival analysis. Then, we considered nine parametric probabilistic models, most of them well known in reliability analysis and in the actuarial literature, with different shapes of the hazard function, that we fitted by maximum-likelihood method and compared with the Akaike information criterion. Our findings show that newborn firms seem to have a decreasing failure rate with age during the first 5 years in market, with the exception of the first months of some years in which the risk can rise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the paper is to propose two new procedures that deal with overfitting problem using neural techniques for variable selection and business failure prediction. The first procedure, called HVS-AUC, is based simultaneously on (i) the backward search, (ii) the HVS measure (Heuristic for Variable Selection), and (iii) the AUC criterion (Area Under Curve). The second procedure, called forward-AUC, is based on (i) the forward search and (ii) the AUC criterion. Using a sample of bankrupt and non-bankrupt firms in France, the implementation of the procedures using neural networks shows that the profitability, the repayment capacity, the taxation, and the importance of investment have a strong explanatory power in bankruptcy prediction. These procedures also provide more parsimonious and more efficient models compared to Linear Discriminant Analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self‐perceived cognitive factors are the vital components in the early stage of entrepreneurship development activities. This paper examines the effect of self‐perceived cognitive factors on entrepreneurship development activities in Oman by using the Oman Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey data collected in 2019. Using the ordered logit regression model, the study found that there is a significant and positive effect of business opportunities on the development of entrepreneurship activities. Necessary skills and creativity also have a significant positive effect on entrepreneurship development activities. However, fear of failure in business has a significant negative effect on it. Young and adult Omani populations perceive that they have adequate knowledge, skills, and capacity for innovation and creativity for entrepreneurship, and they have a positive attitude toward entrepreneurship. The majority of young populations perceive that there is enough opportunity to start a business, but many entrepreneurs are afraid to take risks that entail possible failure. To reduce the uncertainty and fear of failure in business, the government needs to create a business‐friendly environment and support entrepreneurs in various aspects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although filing for bankruptcy is the primary form of economic relief for U.S. consumers in financial distress, pro se debtors lack access to the consumer bankruptcy system. An individual debtor faces many challenges when filing for bankruptcy without an attorney, since the debtor must rely on free access to the information provided by the U.S. Courts website. However, that information is vague and presented in complex legalese and dissuasive diction. On the other hand, U.K. debtors who need financial relief can file for bankruptcy through a clear and accessible bankruptcy filing process. U.K. debtors also have access to free consumer debt advice from a government-funded nonprofit organization, Citizens Advice. This paper discusses the differences in filing processes for U.S. and U.K. debtors. It ultimately concludes that the U.S. should implement similar filing processes to those in the U.K. to create a more accessible bankruptcy system, especially in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many have argued that the technocratic apparatus of development is sustained – and not undermined – by its fallacies. Building on previous failures, development experts envision new plans, new analytical tools and new modes of governance. One recent example is the bottom-of-the-pyramid approach (BOP), a development doctrine predicated on the failure of previous anti-poverty approaches and based on the creation of products, services and entrepreneurial opportunities for the poor. Critically bracketed as a hallmark of millennial neoliberalism in the Global South, BOP projects, like previous development schemes, fail too. Through the narration of two experiments that, in 2015, had failed to create profit at the bottom of the pyramid in Cape Town (South Africa), this paper focuses on how development expertise makes sense of and engages the lack of profitability at the BOP, showing that failure is an important entry point into the actually existing forms of neoliberal anti-poverty enterprises in the Global South. Using J. K. Gibson-Graham's feminist economic geography framing, this article argues that neoliberal doctrines themselves sank these market experiments, whilst opening possibilities for development experts to engage alternative economic forms that stemmed from their failures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we intend to substantiate the usefulness of Deep Learning, especially feedforward neuronal networks, in the prediction of business failure. This methodology provides very good results in terms of predictive performance when large sample sizes are available. Therefore, we have developed a business failure prediction model for European companies, based on this algorithm on a sample of 61,624 companies, of which 12,128 were declared bankrupt in 2016. As independent variables were considered ratios, and economic and financial data obtained from the financial statements for the year preceding the date of failure. Deep Learning achieves a predictive performance of 94%, where companies with larger size and lower solvency are more prone to failure. The obtained results have been tested on an independent test sample, different from that used to estimate and train the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Zombie lending cannot stop the supply chain propagation of business failure. • Such an intervention bears a salient cost by distorting efficiency-based firm exit. • Trade credit is an important channel in the exit distortion. • The distortion is more profound in industries with higher financial constraints. • The tightness of supplier-customer relationship also amplifies the distortion. This paper studies whether the bailout of downstream firms helps stop the supply chain propagation of business failure. By analyzing persistent zombie lending in China, we show that such a bailout policy does not work. Zombie lending to downstream firms does not reduce the exit likelihood of upstream firms. Worse, it distorts efficiency-based firm exit in upstream industries. The exit distortion effect works through the trade credit chain and is more profound in industries with stricter financial constraints and tighter supply chain connections. Our findings reveal the importance of credit allocation efficiency for the Schumpeterian process of creative destruction that is essential for economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction industry remains a major player of the Palestinian economy. Business failure is an important issue for companies in the Gaza Strip uncertain environment. This paper aimed to explore the critical factors that have the potential to cause contractor's business failure and to determine their level of severity from contractor's viewpoint. This paper has considered. Critical factors were listed under five groups: financial and political, contractual, managerial, organizational, and economical causes. Contractors have been advised to consider the most critical factors that have the potential to cause business failure. The most critical factors include: cost of materials, lack of resources, delay in collecting dibs from clients, monopoly, changing funding sources, dealing with suppliers and traders and Israeli attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that significant differences between China and the USA manifest in the models of discourse interaction utilised in news reporting. Focusing on Google's departure, the paper compares the processes of interaction found in The New York Times and China Daily in reporting on the event. The approach of critical discourse analysis is adopted for the analysis, in which layers of both textual and contextual analysis are performed. It is found that the two newspapers utilise distinct discourse strategies which employ quite different models of discourse interaction, and that these different interaction models may bring about further conflicts and misunderstanding between China and the rest of the world. The paper concludes by advocating a multiculturalist approach in building better dialogue and interaction models for future communication between different cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the dynamics of human capital accumulation and human capital depletion in the processes leading to business failure.Design/methodology/approach Building on the human capital theory, strategic human resource and business failure literature, this paper develops a conceptual framework which links the inward and outward dimensions of human capital flows in the business failure process.Findings The analysis sheds light on why some highly skilled individuals may opt to flee declining firms to avoid being stigmatised whilst others become motivated to joint such firms.Research limitations/implications The paper suggests that understanding the nature and dynamics of both flows are essential when seeking to avert collapse.Originality/value In spite of a growing body of research on business failure and intense competition for top talent, much of the existing literature has circumvented the relationship between them. This study develops a unified model towards enhancing our understanding of the human capital flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

State aid policy to banks has developed extensively throughout the financial crisis. After outlining the main features of State aid policy in the banking sector, this article analyses the Kotnik and Dowling judgments where the application of burden sharing arrangements was assessed. In particular, the paper looks at the impact of these judgments on the approach of the Commission on State aid policy and examines the nature of burden sharing arrangements set out in State aid policy. In this context, the paper discusses more generally the relationship between burden sharing arrangements and fundamental rights, in particular the right of property. Then, the article shows that State aid policy to banks still remains highly relevant and controversial in the Banking Union framework where, under certain conditions, Member States can still grant State support measures. This is for instance the case of precautionary recapitalisation as State aid aimed at preventing a bank from going under resolution. Furthermore, the Banking Union framework raises questions such as how burden sharing is related to the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive (BRRD) and what the relation is between burden sharing and bail-in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cloud computing became an inevitable information technology industry. Despite its several plus points such as economy of scale and rapid elasticity, it suffers from vendor lock-in, resource limitation and cybersecurity attacks in which it leads business discontinuity or even business failure. Multi-cloud, on the other hand, can be trustable paradigm to obviate obstacles such as aforesaid unpleasant features of a single cloud. One of the biggest challenges is to know which cloud is commensurate with user's business process with regards to security objectives. To this end, the new method is presented to quantify the amount of cloud security risk (CSR) in regards to user's business process. Therefore, in this paper, the web service composition problem is formulated to bi-objective optimisation problem with service cost and multi-cloud risk viewpoints in ever-increasing multi-cloud environment (MCE) in which each provider has its variable pricing policy and different security level. It is obviously an NP-Hard problem. To solve the combinatorial problem, we develop a bi-objective time-varying particle swarm optimisation (BOTV-PSO) algorithm. The parameters are tuned based on elapsed time so a good balance between exploration and exploitation is achieved. To illustrate the effectiveness of proposed algorithm, we defined several scenarios and compared the performance of proposed algorithm with multi-objective GA-based (MOGA) optimiser, a single objective genetic algorithm (SOGA) that only optimises cost function and neglects CSR, and multi-objective simulated annealing algorithm (MOSA). The experimental results showed the superiority of proposed BOTV-PSO against other approaches in terms of convergence, diversity, fitness, performance, and even scalability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much evidence from recent antitrust cases casts doubt on the ability of conventional remedies to restore competition in digital markets. This paper considers three untested remedies for antitrust enforcement in digital markets: mandatory sharing of algorithmic learning (rather than the data itself); subsidization of competitors; and temporary shutdowns. All three remedies are radical from several perspectives. First, they go beyond halting specific anticompetitive conduct by actively seeking to restore structural conditions favoring competition. Second, they entail government interference with freedom of enterprise and property rights to a substantially higher degree than the market-driven process which normally governs antitrust remedy design. Third, all three remedies create complex tradeoffs, in that they could lead either to competitive benefits (e.g., the entry of new firms) or to harms (e.g., consumer losses in cases of platform shutdowns or anticompetitive coordination in cases of algorithmic sharing). All three thus require careful balancing before implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Professional liability insurance is designed for businesses that sell their expertise, such as accountants, financial consultants, lawyers, engineers, architects. This type of insurance protects businesses and individuals who provide professional services to clients from the legal costs or for the damages that may arise form an act, omission or breach of duty in course of their business. Professional liability insurance is safety net for business mistake such as failure to deliver work product the clients expect and for which they paid. On the insurance market in Republic of Macedonia are offered almost all type of products related to professional liability offered in the neighboring countries and in EU. The participation of this type of insurance in Gross Written Premium is increasing as well as the number of sold policies. But is this increase due to awareness of the businesses for the advantages of having professional liability insurance or it is related to legal obligation for buying this insurance in order to comply with legal requirements or acquire license/permit for certain profession. The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether and to which extent the professional liability insurance is used as efficient strategy for offsetting the consequences and losses arising from professional liability risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The failure of construction companies is quite crucial because it results in unfinished projects and responsibilities that in turn result in many losses to governments, economies, owners, creditors, and surety companies. Previous research on the prediction of construction business failure utilized insolvency causes that were either arbitrary or based on the availability of data. Many scholars have shown the absence of, and need for, a holistic framework for the identification of the causes of construction business failure. As such, this paper reviews previous literature incorporating construction business failure applications, with the objective of identifying existing knowledge, current gaps, and needed future research directions on the different failure factors in a comprehensive approach. To this end, the authors (1) performed a meta-analysis of previous research work for a 30-year period spanning from 1988 to 2018; (2) identified and defined failure factors that impact the business operations of construction firms; and (3) utilized social network analysis to quantitatively identify the overlooked and missing construction business failure factors. Research results indicate that there are 20 factors that could collectively contribute to business failures of construction firms. It is also shown that there is a dire need for future research to better explore the impacts of some understudied critical factors, including the effect of inadequate company organizational structure and human capital on construction business failure. Another important finding is the absence of models that include a holistic incorporation of all 20 construction business failure factors. The findings herein are a significant contribution to the body of knowledge on construction business failure because they integrate the outcomes of previous works and use them to provide robust foundations for knowledge advancement. The presented guidelines are believed to close areas where an abundance of research work occurs and to unveil areas where additional research is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Background: The approach is based on theoretical sources and completed studies on business debt, debt level and repayment awareness and how this issue relates to SMEs in the Czech Republic. Purpose of the article: The main purpose of this paper is to examine the attitude of SMEs towards the issue of company debt and its position within the economy. This attitude is an inherent part of the company's risk management. Methods: Three researched issues (How strongly is company debt perceived as a financial risk factor; Does the company consider debt to be a serious matter in their business; What measures does the company take to reduce risk) supported by hypotheses, which verified the thesis, were statistically tested. Finding & Value added: Practical implications confirm the thesis that there is a belief that SMEs do not consider debt to be a critical factor of business risk and do not associate it directly with the major risk of business failure. SMEs do not view debt negatively and do not directly link debt to the risk of failure. Consequently, companies consider the risk of indebtedness as relatively insignificant. Their approach to indebtedness is therefore generally passive and they also believe that it will not jeopardize their business, and they will always somehow manage to solve it through insurance, risk avoidance and through creation of financial reserves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, the economy of our society is in a period of transition, and there are many family businesses that also face the problem of successors' handover; moreover, whether the succession process is carried out smoothly will affect the success of the future development of the family business. In the real society, the wrong selection of the next successor in the family business and the failure of the successor in receiving enough preparations all can lead to the final collapse of the family business, which is common. This is no reason for people to think seriously about the successors. In this paper, based on the related theory of cognitive science, the psychological model of the successor of the family business and its influence on the internationalization of family business were studied and analyzed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focused on cloud Data Governance (DG) for High Performance Computing (HPC) Cloud data Centre focusing on IaaS cloud service. To ensure the service provided to users is secured, HPCC are required to be certified by International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Therefore, IaaS security checklist is needed to measure the IaaS service provided. In depth interview results shows that failure in implementing good DG not only will put HPC data center at risks, but also will leads to business failure and recovery process might take more effort than some organizations might have imagined. At the end of paper, a cloud DG security checklist for IaaS security is proposed based on the ISO/IEC 27012 and applied by identified HPC cloud data center to improve the security of IaaS services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Certain risks associated with particular human activities cannot be eliminated, with commercial risks representing factors of business success or failure. In the current turbulent environment, proper risk assessment and management is of utmost importance in maintaining competitiveness. The aim of this paper is to present the output of our research which focused on the assessment of commercial risk faced by exporters to China, specifically, determining the probabilities for commercial risk model management. Along with this, the cultural context of the Chinese market influencing risk size are explored, particularly the concepts of tan-wej, kuan-si, li-ťie and mien-c', the effect of which was confirmed by our exporter survey. The research focused on Czech companies exporting goods and technologies to China. The study involves manufacturing enterprises (section C, CZ-NACE Rev. 2) as well as, more specifically, medium and large scale engineering, along with chemical and electrical power companies. Firms exporting common consumer goods, raw materials and recyclables were excluded from the study. The data were obtained from controlled interviews with company representatives (with 58 percent of the exporters participating in a 2013 research) and from Justice.cz (2016) which published economic results of all exporters registered in 2015. The study outcomes were further reviewed in 2016-2017 using follow-up interviews and literature reviews. In collecting the primary data and verifying research outcomes, semi-structured and structured interviews were conducted, following which methods of descriptive statistics and statistical dependence analysis were applied. The findings allow for the construction of a commercial risk assessment model for export to China, involving relative risk costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The paper examines the institutional obstacles in Ghana. • Examine the transitional path of serial entrepreneurs after business failure. • Informal and formal entrepreneurship in Africa are examined. • Government policy and changes in government in Ghana are examined. • Entrepreneurial development in Ghana is examined. This study builds on prior scholarly works on institutions and entrepreneurship by examining the process of transitions and institutional obstacles that force serial entrepreneurs' shift to operate in the formal or informal sector after entrepreneurial business failures. Using insights from 32 serial entrepreneurs in Ghana, a framework was developed and utilized to explicate how the pull and push motivations for the transition into or persisting with formality or informality after business failure unfolds over time. Our analysis sheds light on the processes and effects of the motivations on the persistently high level of entrepreneurial activities in the informal sector for many emerging economies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to contrast the spillover effects in business failure derived from the geographic proximity among firms of the same sector. To get this purpose, we develop an empirical application based on the analysis of the join-count statistics on a sample of firms of service sector located in the municipality of Murcia (Spain). Our results show significant spatial autocorrelation pattern, therefore, the probability of failure in a firm not only depends on its internal characteristics, but also on the situation of failure of its vicinity peer companies. These results can be an interesting starting point in the development of papers which consider the interdependence effects among closer peer companies in business failure literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper critically examines a new European approach to business failure and insolvency. It addresses the broader political dimensions of the subject and sets the new European approach in the context of the objectives of insolvency law to rescue viable businesses and to liquidate non-viable ones. The comparable US procedure – Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code – is used as a reference point for detailed analysis. The paper suggests that the new approach is of particular importance and adds value in those EU Member States that have underdeveloped restructuring frameworks. It is also suggested however, that any measures of legislative harmonisation should be of the minimum harmonisation variety leaving scope for regulatory differentiation and allowing national governments to build on local restructuring frameworks and domestic business practices that work well. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1616, the English East India Company expanded its trade into Safavid Iran. The chief merchants in India hoped to acquire a significant share of the Iranian silk trade. After several difficult years in India, the English traders in Surat felt pressure to establish a solid foundation in Iran where they could redirect Iranian silk through Iran's southern ports and onto Company ships for Europe. Despite Robert Sherley's promise of wealth and a prosperous market for English cloth, many in the English camp, predominantly Sir Thomas Roe, objected to the silk trade on grounds that it was generally a risky venture. But several leading merchants dismissed Roe's concerns and pursued the trade without his approval. After early indications that the venture had potential for success, the English silk trade quickly began to falter and finally ceased to exist by 1640. Although its demise was once described as the Company's failure to produce a substantial quantity of purchasing power—eastern goods, precious metals, and English commodities—this paper explores an alternative explanation that suggests the Company's failure in Iran was not exclusively the consequence of poor economics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper extends the theory of fuzzy diseases predictions in order to detect the causes of business failure. This extension is justified through the advantages of the reference model and its originality. Moreover, the fuzzy model is completed by this proposal and some parts of it have been published in isolated articles. For this purpose, the fuzzy theory is combined with the OWA operators to identify the factors that generate problems in firms. Also, a goodness index to validate its functionality and prediction capacity is introduced. The model estimates a matrix of economic- financial knowledge based on matrices of causes and symptoms. Knowing the symptoms makes it possible to estimate the causes, and managing them properly, allows monitoring and improving the company's financial situation and forecasting its future. Also with this extension, the model can be useful to develop suitable computer systems for monitoring companies' problems, warning of failures and facilitating decision-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Australian car manufacturing industry closed in the third quarter of 2017, bringing to an end 70 years of vehicle assembly as General Motors Holden, Ford and Toyota ceased large-scale production. This resulted in highly visible redundancies amongst the vehicle producers, and a more profound, but less noticeable, loss of employment within the supply chain. The likely impact on the affected communities will be profound, with northern Adelaide, the outer parts of Melbourne and the regional city of Geelong likely to bear witness to long-term worklessness for decades to come. This outcome, however, was not an inevitable consequence of market forces; instead, it was a product of the decisions of successive governments over more than 30 years, as well as the consequences of a global industry restructuring in the face of economic shock. This paper begins by situating the research within a new state spaces framework before sketching out the dynamics of the Australian car industry in the twentieth century, and moving on to consider the institutional and policy factors that contributed at the national level to change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insolvency law used to be a set of rules that govern the way a debtor is treated once he became insolvent and stopped trading. Certain mechanisms respond to this incident in order to safeguard a fair treatment of all creditors and other stakeholders with the aim of minimizing the damage. Modern insolvency laws do more. They have been endowed with tools that shall allow for a restructuring of the business of the failing debtor, often combining the common tools of insolvency law, e.g. a collective stay, with new tools to facilitate a restructuring agreement. But why wait until a debtor is insolvent? The idea of early redress to a business failure has led to a number of legislative pre-insolvency initiatives that make such tools available to debtors that are not yet insolvent. The result is a mixture of insolvency and restructuring law that has grown guided by practical needs rather than doctrinal approaches. In this paper, a doctrinal approach is proposed that offers a clear distinction between insolvency and restructuring law. Based on the description of the debt cancellation effect as the common function of all insolvency and restructuring proceedings, the different mechanisms that both types of procedures use lead to a clear categorization of insolvency and restructuring proceedings and their governing law and principles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the bedrock of most economies of the world. Due to global competition, SMEs are making significant investments in information technology (IT) to improve their business processes. However, a study of extant literature on the subject of IT governance in SMEs has highlighted the fact that the implementation of structural controls to enable effective IT governance is often difficult, resulting in project failures and loss of income. Objectives: This paper seeks to examine ways by which SMEs can successfully adapt a suitable IT governance framework to manage its IT investments. Method: A content analysis of extant literature was done in this paper. The Technology- Organisation-Environment theory forms the theoretical basis of the proposed key pillars for an SME to evaluate its capability to embark on an IT governance initiative in order to obtain the desired results. Results: From the content analysis of relevant literature, the paper proposed three key pillars which should be in place before an SME adapts any IT governance framework to manage its IT investments. The key pillars are considered an important link between strategic IT governance plans and measurable successful outcomes. Conclusion: It was concluded that an SME would be better positioned for successful IT governance if it were to conduct a careful analysis of the components of these key pillars before embarking on the implementation of any IT governance framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present paper we analyze the reasons behind the high success rate in the football clubs insolvency proceedings. The Spanish insolvency scenario has shown elevated fail rates (higher than 90%), evidencing notable weaknesses. Conversely, football clubs have successfully overcome their legal insolvency situations in the great majority of cases, and the results of our paper prove that (i) a financial structure less concentrated in secured credits (particularly secured financial institutions) than the rest of firms, and (ii) the systematic support given by public administrations (voting in favor of their proposals) have provided such outcome. Additionally, this occurs in a context in which public administrations have shown their reticence to give support to the rest of insolvent firms, while others (football clubs) receive it even though they present poorer management indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship of non-financial and financial factors to firm survival, provide evidence of factors related to financial success and distress for prominent Australian agricultural firms, and improve the predictive capacity of financial failure models. Design/methodology/approach – The paper utilizes mixed method exploratory case studies across four Australian agricultural firms (two successful and two failed) listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. Findings – The authors found that the use of an Integrated Multi-Measured approach provided a higher classification rate for the failed group than those provided by an individual measure. We also discovered that non-financial factors associated with the agricultural organizations studied impacted their success or failure. These factors included managements’ involvement in organizational strategy and the composition of the board of directors. It was also apparent that management decision-making approaches may become frozen, or at best restricted, in the face of impending failure, dependent upon the stress level within the organization and the management skill base. Practical implications – The cases studied indicated that non-financial factors of failure occurred prior to any financial predictors, intuitively indicating a relationship between non-financial and financial factors in Australian agricultural firms. Originality/value – The identification of financial and non-financial factors and sound internal processes which distinguish successful and failing firms can be utilized for the development of an early warning predictor of organizational success or failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]