1 Introduction
2 Defining failure
3 Theory and hypotheses
3.1 Resource-based explanations of organizational ecology findings
3.2 Previous empirical studies and development of hypotheses
Author(s) and year | Title | Definition of failure | Sample size | Data source | Findings | Methodology | AGE |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Hall (1992) | Reasons for insolvency amongst small firms—a review and fresh evidence | Bankruptcy | 857 cases | British Official Receiver and perceptions of managers from failed businesses | No exceptional differences are evident between bankruptcy trustees’ and managers’ perceptions regarding the reason for failure. Major contributors to small-business insolvency are problems with operational management, undercapitalization, and poor management of debt. More relevant to the failure of smaller firms are quality problems with goods and services, lack of managerial abilities, and personal issues. Younger small firms are even more likely to suffer from poor funding, poor products, and inefficient marketing. As firms age, poor strategic adaptation and environmental changes gain importance | Univariate Analysis | X |
Gaskill et al. (1993) | A factor analytic study of the perceived causes of small business failure | Discontinuance | 91 cases | Telephone interviews and questionnaires with failed owners/managers in Iowa (US) | Small business failure is caused by four major blocks of causes: (1) lacking ability in managerial and planning functions, (2) working capital management (including inadequate financial accounting record keeping), (3) a competitive environment, and (4) growth and overexpansion | Factor Analysis | |
Baldwin et al. (1997) | Failing concerns: Business bankruptcy in Canada | Bankruptcy: firms involved in court proceedings that resulted in losses to creditors | 550 firms | Survey of bankruptcy trustees | Main reasons for business insolvencies in Canada are inexperienced management and a lack of knowledge of financial management. Both young and old firms suffer from these deficiencies, even though the management of new firms faces a learning curve. Those firms that cannot reduce such internal shortcomings fail early. As companies grow, their management is challenged to run an increasingly complex enterprise. In this regard, a lack of emphasis on quality, unwillingness to delegate responsibilities, departure of key employees, and personal problems gain relative impact. Older firms fail primarily due to external reasons, such as increased competition or economic downturns | Univariate Analysis (Contingency tables) | X |
Thornhill and Amit (2003) | Bankruptcy, firm age, and the resource-based view | Bankruptcy | 339 firms | Canadian Insolvency Practitioners Association (Statistics Canada) | Failures of young firms are related to deficiencies in general and financial management, whereas failures of older firms are more likely to be caused by external market forces, supporting the liability of obsolescence reasoning | Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression | X |
Carter and van Auken (2006) | Small firm bankruptcy | Bankruptcy | 57 firms | Questionnaires to bankrupt firms in Iowa (US) | Empirical analysis revealed that three factors explain the main problems of small bankrupt firms. These are problems with financing a going concern (debt), knowledge (including lack of management skills, poor accounting, or calculation), and climate (including poor economic conditions and increased competition within sector) | Factor Analysis | |
Ooghe and De Prijcker (2008) | Failure processes and causes of company bankruptcy: a typology | Bankruptcy | 12 firms | Annual corporate accounts, court documents and interviews with related parties in insolvency procedures in Belgium | Start-up failures may result from specific internal or external problems that alone are sufficient for failure, namely: inexperienced management, lack of external support by customers, and poor capital conditions. Companies that have already survived their initial years are prone to failure due to a combination of external and internal factors | Case Study Design | X |
Lukason and Hoffman (2015) | Firm failure causes: a population level study | Bankruptcy | 854 cases | Data System of Courts/Database of Court Statistics and Decisions from Estonia | Larger firms are less likely to fail due to internal reasons alone. Because of their complexity, a combination of internal and external causes is a more likely cause of failure. Older firms are more likely to fail for external reasons | Multinomial logistic regression | X |
4 Data and method
4.1 Sample and metrics
Description | |
---|---|
Internal causes | |
Lack of equity | (1) Too little equity to finance a going concern; (2) no alternative finance source due to insufficient equity basis; (3) liquidity problems due to lack of finance |
Poor business-economic competencies | (1) Poor or missing accounting, (2) poor or missing calculation, (3) poor or missing financial planning, (4) poor or missing management accounting, or (5) poor or missing marketing knowledge; (6) too little focus on dunning or management of accounts receivables; (7) other operative problems in management and administration |
Unqualified management | (1) Missing or poor industry experience; (2) missing or poor industry knowledge; (3) missing or poor management experience |
High cost pressure | (1) High number of personnel; (2) too high overheads; (3) floating or little workload that causes problems with meeting fixed costs; (4) high variable costs due to expensive material or subcontractors |
Poor quality of goods or services | (1) Operative problems in production of goods or service provision; (2) high expenses due to warranties; (3) failing to provide consistent quality of goods or services; (4) guarantee claims |
Private domain | (1) Illness or death of manager or key employees; (2) conflicts between managers or owners; (3) family problems (e.g. divorce); (4) high personal drawings |
Fraud | (1) Criminal actions by managers or employees; (2) personal enrichment of individuals; (3) tax fraud and high penalties; (4) high costs for attorneys resulting from respective lawsuits |
External causes | |
Competition | (1) Increased industry competition due to entries of new competitors; (2) price fights to gain additional market share; (3) other changes in competitive environment within sectors |
Economic slowdown | (1) General worsening of economic conditions; (2) easing spending power; (3) missing investment incentives |
Bad debt | (1) Insolvency due to bad debt of major customer; (2) follow-up insolvency |
Others | (1) Termination of contract with main customer; (2) dependency on holding company; (3) escalation of commitment (investment) in certain projects; (4) strategic mistakes by management; (5) failure in patent application and exploitation; (6) natural disasters |
4.2 Descriptive statistics
n = 459 | No. in sample | % of sample |
---|---|---|
Independent variables | ||
Predictor variable | ||
Age (quartiles) | ||
0–3 years | 125 | 27 |
4–7 years | 120 | 26 |
8–15 years | 105 | 23 |
More than 15 years | 105 | 23 |
Missing | 4 | 1 |
Control variables | ||
Size (SME definition) | ||
0 employees | 149 | 32 |
1–9 employees | 193 | 42 |
More than 9 employees | 117 | 26 |
Industry | ||
Service | 212 | 46 |
Construction/building | 120 | 26 |
Trade | 68 | 15 |
Manufacturing industry | 24 | 5 |
Miscellaneous | 35 | 8 |
Dependent variables | ||
Internal causes | ||
Lack of equity | 163 | 36 |
Poor business economic competencies | 207 | 45 |
Unqualified management | 128 | 28 |
High cost pressure | 136 | 30 |
Poor quality of goods or services | 36 | 8 |
Private domain | 82 | 18 |
Fraud | 31 | 7 |
External causes | ||
Competition | 137 | 30 |
Economic slowdown | 78 | 17 |
Bad debt | 49 | 11 |
Frequencies n = 455 | Internal causes | External causes | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Age | Cases | Lack of equity | Poor business economic competencies | Unqualified management | High cost pressure | Poor quality | Private domain | Fraud | Competition | Economic slowdown | Bad debt |
0–3 years | 125 | 45 | 66 | 48 | 31 | 10 | 19 | 9 | 31 | 16 | 14 |
4–7 years | 120 | 44 | 55 | 40 | 41 | 10 | 17 | 9 | 27 | 22 | 11 |
8–15 years | 105 | 24 | 39 | 19 | 22 | 10 | 23 | 8 | 25 | 16 | 9 |
> 15 years | 105 | 50 | 46 | 20 | 42 | 6 | 21 | 4 | 54 | 24 | 15 |
Sum | 455 | 163 | 206 | 127 | 136 | 36 | 80 | 30 | 137 | 78 | 49 |
Proportions within age group | Internal causes | External causes | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Age | Proportion (%) | Lack of equity (%) | Poor business economic competencies (%) | Unqualified management (%) | High cost pressure (%) | Poor quality (%) | Private domain (%) | Fraud (%) | Competition (%) | Economic slowdown (%) | Bad debt (%) |
0–3 years | 100 | 36 | 53 | 38 | 25 | 8 | 15 | 7 | 25 | 13 | 11 |
4–7 years | 100 | 37 | 46 | 33 | 34 | 8 | 14 | 8 | 23 | 18 | 9 |
8–15 years | 100 | 23 | 37 | 18 | 21 | 10 | 22 | 8 | 24 | 15 | 9 |
> 15 years | 100 | 48 | 44 | 19 | 40 | 6 | 20 | 4 | 51 | 23 | 14 |
All | 100 | 36 | 45 | 28 | 30 | 8 | 18 | 7 | 30 | 17 | 11 |
Proportions within cause | Internal causes | External causes | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Age | All (%) | Lack of equity (%) | Poor business economic competencies (%) | Unqualified management (%) | High cost pressure (%) | Poor quality (%) | Private domain (%) | Fraud (%) | Competition (%) | Economic slowdown (%) | Bad debt (%) |
0–3 years | 27 | 28 | 32 | 38 | 23 | 28 | 24 | 30 | 23 | 21 | 29 |
4–7 years | 26 | 27 | 27 | 31 | 30 | 28 | 21 | 30 | 20 | 28 | 22 |
8–15 years | 23 | 15 | 19 | 15 | 16 | 28 | 29 | 27 | 18 | 21 | 18 |
> 15 years | 23 | 31 | 22 | 16 | 31 | 17 | 26 | 13 | 39 | 31 | 31 |
Proportion | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
4.3 Statistical methodology
n = 455 | Internal causes | External causes | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Lack of equity | Poor business economic competencies | Unqualified management | High cost pressure | Poor quality | Private domain | Fraud | Competition | Economic slowdown | Bad debt | |
Control variables | ||||||||||
Industry | ||||||||||
Service (reference class) | ||||||||||
Construction/building | 0.810 | 1.443 | 1.822* | 0.501* | 9.007*** | 1.125 | 4.997** | 1.164 | 1.191 | 1.764 |
Trade | 0.656 | 0.764 | 2.190* | 0.730 | 7.180** | 0.765 | 3.662* | 0.925 | 0.507 | 2.865* |
Manufacturing industry | 0.324* | 0.900 | 1.544 | 1.733 | 16.398*** | 0.443 | 1.000 | 0.526 | 1.812 | 2.457 |
Miscellaneous | 0.793 | 0.443+ | 1.099 | 1.120 | 2.383 | 1.495 | 1.085 | 0.332+ | 1.353 | 0.835 |
Size (SME definition) | ||||||||||
0 employees (reference class) | ||||||||||
1–9 employees | 1.304 | 1.085 | 1.039 | 1.626+ | 5.227* | 1.449 | 0.383+ | 1.594 | 1.134 | 1.296 |
More than 9 employees | 5.372*** | 2.541** | 1.739+ | 1.511 | 16.770*** | 1.103 | 2.831* | 6.326*** | 0.543 | 1.329 |
Predictor variables | ||||||||||
Age (quartiles) | ||||||||||
0–3 years (reference class) | ||||||||||
4–7 years | 0.963 | 0.783 | 0.812 | 1.518 | 1.103 | 0.928 | 1.043 | 0.848 | 1.636 | 0.819 |
8–15 years | 0.481* | 0.550* | 0.373** | 0.704 | 1.433 | 1.547 | 1.618 | 0.965 | 1.253 | 0.782 |
More than 15 years | 1.140 | 0.590+ | 0.305*** | 1.783+ | 0.345+ | 1.483 | 0.369 | 2.510** | 2.537* | 1.162 |
Constant | 0.427** | 0.867 | 0.392*** | 0.304*** | 0.003*** | 0.146*** | 0.030*** | 0.176*** | 0.143*** | 0.070*** |
R2 Cox and Snell | 0.126 | 0.069 | 0.068 | 0.051 | 0.112 | 0.019 | 0.075 | 0.165 | 0.031 | 0.024 |
R2 Nagelkerke | 0.173 | 0.092 | 0.098 | 0.073 | 0.264 | 0.031 | 0.194 | 0.234 | 0.052 | 0.049 |
5 Results
5.1 Regression results
Hypothesis | Expected relation | Results | |
---|---|---|---|
Internal causes | |||
Lack of equity | H1 | (−) | Non monotonic |
Poor business economic competencies | H2 | (−) | Confirmed |
Unqualified management | H3 | (−) | Confirmed |
High cost pressure | H7 | (+) | Confirmed |
Poor quality of goods or services | H4 | (−) | Confirmed |
Private domain | H5 | (−) | Not confirmed |
Fraud | H6 | (0) | Confirmed |
External causes | |||
Competition | H8 | (+) | Confirmed |
Economic slowdown | H9 | (+) | Confirmed |
Bad debt | H10 | (+) | Not confirmed |