Organizational Failure and Turnaround: Lessons for Public Services from the For-Profit Sector

As the performance of public services is increasingly scrutinized, it is now commonplace for some schools, hospitals, local authorities and other public organizations to be deemed 'failing' and for attempts to be made at creating a turnaround in their performance. This article explores the literature on failure and turnaround in for-profit organizations, presents a number of models or frameworks for describing and categorizing failure and turnaround, and examines the relevance and transferability of theoretical and empirical studies in the for-profit sector to the emerging field of failure and turnaround in public services.     

Success and failure in turnaround attempts. An analysis of SMEs within the Finnish Restructuring of Enterprises Act

This study focuses on the success and failure of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) attempting turnaround within Finland's Restructuring of Enterprises Act. In doing so, it aims to shed light on (1) how successful and unsuccessful SME turnarounds differ and (2) the effectiveness of the Finnish regime in promoting SME recovery. A preliminary review of the turnaround literature revealed 23 decline and recovery variables. Data on these variables were collected via a questionnaire sent to the administrators of failing SMEs that entered restructuring. Data from the sample of 228 returns were subjected to factor and logit analysis. The factor analysis finds four decline categories: poor management, high debt in adverse macroeconomy, an adverse microeconomic environment and one-off causes of decline. It also finds three recovery action categories: management change and cash generation, market reorientation and cost-cutting and retrenchment. The logit analysis finds that one-off causes of decline, management change and cash generation and cost-cutting and retrenchment are more important in successful turnarounds and that poor management and an adverse microeconomic environment are more important in unsuccessful turnarounds. The study also finds that the Finnish Restructuring of Enterprises Act has resulted in good rates of business survival. Fifty-four per cent of SMEs in our sample turnaround and survive.     

Reluctant employees and felt stress: The moderating impact of manager decisiveness

Job stress is an integral part of the organizational landscape and particularly severe in the sales profession. A host of studies have looked at felt stress, its antecedents, and consequences. This research examines how employee resistance to change and a manager's decisiveness affect the salesperson's felt stress and turnover intentions. This study shows that the salesperson's resistance to change is positively associated with felt stress. Study results also show that the impact of an employee's resistance to change on felt stress is moderated by a manager's decisiveness. Model hypotheses are tested with responses from 255 bank salespeople in India.     

Impact of host‐country corruption on U.S. and Chinese cross‐border acquisitions

Does corruption in a target country create a similar effect on cross‐border acquisitions (CBAs) by firms from a developed and a developing country? This article empirically examines the relationship between corruption and CBAs by firms from China and the United States. Based on a combined sample of 10,236 completed acquisitions over the period of 1990–2006, the authors find that both Chinese and U.S. firms make a significantly greater number of acquisitions in less corrupt countries. However, unlike the U.S. CBAs, we find a significantly positive relationship between the transaction value of Chinese CBAs and the level of perceived corruption in the target country. It is suggested that having been schooled in weaker institutions themselves, Chinese firms may find it easier to deal with corrupt conditions in target countries, giving them an advantage over firms from less corrupt countries. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Macroeconomic Response to Oil and Food Price Shocks: A Structural VAR Approach to the Indian Economy

The study analyzed the dynamic impact of oil and food price shocks on the macroeconomy of India, using the monthly time series data from April 1994 to May 2016 in a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) framework. Being a net food exporter and net oil importer, the economy is found to face deleterious impacts of global oil and food price shocks on its macroeconomic performance. Output responds negatively to oil and food price hikes along with their volatility and positively to the fall in these prices. Inflation responds positively to all the three transformations of shocks with no signs of coming down, highlighting the price downward inflexibility in India. The study could not establish any evidence of negative demand shocks in face of oil and food price volatility. Central bank responds with a contractionary policy stance to negate the influences of external shocks. Forecast error variance decomposition points out the dominance of external shocks in influencing the domestic variables after their own shocks. Finally, the inflation downward rigidity is observed even in the long run.     

Long‐Term Oriented Marketing Relationships and Ethical Conduct in Outsourcing Sector

The study evaluates the positive effect of long‐term oriented marketing relationship on ethical conduct from the perspective of the service provider (i.e., the agent‐firm), by integrating the relevant literature from relationship marketing, ethics, and long‐term orientation domains. The paper proposes that service providers that build relationship quality with their clients will display increased ethical conduct toward them. Specifically, the study examines the positive influence of the dimensions of relationship quality (that are relevant to the offshoring services context) that the service provider firm's employees undertake and their impact on ethical conduct. Overall, the results indicate that the commitment‐only full mediation model of relationship marketing variables on ethical conduct is a better representation than both direct‐effects model and other competing mediating models examined in this study. Fundamentally, it means that customer service officers should incorporate long‐term orientation and commitment in their principal–agent relationships that will provide the impetus for undertaking ethical behavior. The article concludes with a discussion and implications of the findings.     

Implied volatilities,stochastic interest rates,and currency futures options valuation: an empirical investigation

Different models of pricing currency call and put options on futures are empirically tested. Option prices are determined using different models and compared to actual market prices. Option prices are determined using historical as well as implied volatility. The different models tested include both constant and stochastic interest rate models. To determine if the model prices are different from the market prices, regression analysis and paired t-tests are performed. To see which model misprices the least, root mean square errors are determined. It is found that better results are obtained when implied volatility is used. Stochastic interest rate models perform better than constant interest rate models.     

Acquisition announcements and stock market valuations of acquiring firms' rivals: A test of the growth probability hypothesis in China

To examine the impact of acquisition announcements on the stock market returns of rivals of the acquiring firms, we propose a growth probability hypothesis: when an acquisition is announced, it signals the potential for future growth in the acquirer's industry to the market, resulting in positive stock market reactions to rivals of the acquiring firms. We test the growth probability hypothesis with a longitudinal sample of Chinese domestic and cross‐border acquisitions during 1993–2008. The results provide robust support for this hypothesis as a means to explain market reactions to rivals of acquiring firms. We also empirically test and negate alternative theoretical explanations advanced in prior literature to explain positive market reactions to rivals of the target firms. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.