Suchergebnisse

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the potential impact of stakeholders' behavior on business failure, through its influence on the generation and distribution of value added.


Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of 2,277 Spanish SMEs – half of which were businesses that failed during the years 2006‐2009 – the authors conducted an empirical study on a number of variables representing the participation of stakeholders in the generation and distribution of value added. This was undertaken in order to discern differential behavior between the variables and prove their usefulness in predicting business failure. For this purpose, a mean difference analysis between failed and non‐failed businesses and a multivariate logistic regression model were applied.


Findings
The results obtained show that the stakeholders' behavior in relation to their participation in the generation and distribution of value added, affects the likelihood of business failure.


Originality/value
This paper provides empirical evidence of the influence of stakeholders' behavior on the likelihood of business failure, through their participation in the generation and distribution of value added. The results are useful for creating management strategies because they offer advice on the implementation of business management models based on the stakeholder approach, and on the appropriate involvement of all those who make up the conglomerate in the generation and distribution of value added. They also emphasize the value of recording information related to the Value‐Added Statement in order to explain a firm's level of dependence on its stakeholders and assess the firm's risk of insolvency.

The impact of crises on the long-term sustainability of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has been attracting growing interest in the literature and from governments due to the significance of such companies with respect to economic growth, innovation, and employment. Although failure prediction models have been proposed based on accounting and other qualitative information, little is known regarding the influence of stakeholders on the failure process of SMEs. From the perspective of long-term sustainability, this article analyzes the role of the financial influence of stakeholders on the likelihood of business failure. An empirical study was carried out on a sample of 2352 Spanish SMEs, examining the differences between failed and non-failed SMEs and using a classification tree methodology to investigate the role played by each type of stakeholder in overcoming crisis events. The study provides empirical evidence regarding the relative importance of stakeholders to SMEs under conditions of financial distress, and proposes their categorization on the basis of their control over firms' financial resources. Specifically, the analysis reveals that the capacity of the firm to generate sustainable wealth over time and to overcome critical situations is dependent on the most critical stakeholders. Workers, customers, and suppliers are the most important in ensuring the long-term sustainability of SMEs during the first stages of a crisis. Following the initial operational problems, other creditors (financial institutions) become relevant. In this sense, the results of this study encourage firms and governments to develop cooperation strategies with stakeholders (co-responsibility) in line with the proposed conceptual models of business sustainability. ; This research was partially funded by the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union, belonging to the research group: Sistemas de información externa e interna de las organizaciones: información corporativa y para la gestión (GISEIO). This research was also partially funded by the Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, grant number 2019-GRIN-26906