European business failures
Caligs
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mercoledì, ottobre 26, 2005
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Il centro di ricerca Maastricht accounting, auditing e information management presenta i risultati di un progetto di ricerca sui Business Failures in Europa. Lo studio è basato su un'analisi di 60 casi di grandi aziende pubbliche degli stati membri dell'Eu sulla base di una struttura sviluppata da Argenti nel 1976. La logica usata da Argenti nel dividere i business failures in quattro categorie ha portato oggi in questa letteratura un metodo capace di analizzare e prevedere il verificarsi di questi fenomeni. Questa procedura di classificazione rapportato con lo scenario e i dati europei ha determinato il seguente schema:1 Business failures in Europe relate to various categories of business failures. Business failures in Europe relate to various categories of business failures. This result indicates that the characteristics of business failures are diverse and there is not a single dominant cause (such as fraud) of European business failures in general. Although it is true that a relatively large number of cases are related to fraudulent or unethical behaviour by company managers or employees, for over 60% of the business failures included in our sample the main cause of the business failure was not related to fraud.
2. For only a very limited number of business failures the failure cannot be attributed in any way to particular individuals or parties. The business failures that are classified in category 1, 2 and 3 (except for the cases mentioned under point 2) are all related to problems of an economic nature in one way or another and to a certain extent are related to the common risks of entrepreneurship. For category 1 companies, these problems mostly lay in the relatively weak long term economic prospects of the company. For category 2 the cause of business failure is usually related to tactical or strategic management decisions. For category 3 companies, external economic problems are the basic cause of business failure. All these cases, therefore, are related to management failure, but only in the sense that top management has not succeeded in finding a strategy that resulted in the survival of the company.
3 For the vast majority of cases in category 4 the business failure is closely related to harmful, fraudulent or unethical actions taken by individuals or groups. In most cases, the company apparently lacks a structure in which a dominant manager/owner is adequately monitored and corrected for taking any illegitimate actions.
4 In a limited number of cases in category 4, the illegal or unethical actions of the full management board (as opposed to a single dominant manager) have caused business failure. In three cases, a lack of control regarding employees (rather than members of the management board) has resulted in a business failure (Barings, Ferranti, Wickes). However, as indicated before, most category 4 cases are related to the presence of a dominant manager/owner rather than to fraud being committed by a large portion of the management board.
5 The use of business failure prediction models indicates that the ex post predictability of the business failures based on financial ratio’s amounts to 74.4% for failing companies and 88.4% for non failing companies, resulting in an overall prediction rate of 81.4%. Therefore, the prediction rate of the model estimated in this study is within the range reported in earlier studies on failure prediction However, as indicated before, most category 4 cases are related to the presence of a dominant manager/owner rather than to fraud being committed by a large portion of the management board.
La frode amministrativa nelle aziende pubbliche è un fattore dominante nei casi europei di business failures. Questo fattore, indica la ricerca, si verifica in più del 50% dei casi analizzati, mentre secondo Argenti (1976) dovrebbe tendere verso il 37%.
"This type of business failure is closely related to the adverse role of a dominant manager or owner within a company whose engagements in fraudulent or unethical behaviour are unchallenged within the company and eventually result in disastrous consequences. Over 60% of the sample cases were related to economic factors which are considered part of the normal business risk related to running a major corporation."In Europa i business failures sono collegati all’assenza di strategie di lungo termine, di valutazione dei progetti, dall’approvazione di investimenti che si rivelano successivamente inadeguati, da errate decisioni da parte delle amministrazioni. La seconda conclusione di questo studio correla i business failures europei a problemi di contabilità.
"In the 60 cases studied, there are 16 cases (27%) where failing internal control procedures were reported and there are 23 cases (38%) where creative accounting was a major issue. Creative accounting issues are most prevalent in category 2 where company management is tempted to engage in creative accounting procedures based on the argument that the current financial situation is only temporary and does not accurately reflect the underlying economic potential of the company. As a result, in a number of these cases company managers were sued for creative accounting activities aimed at misleading investors or creditors."I risultati presentati in questo rapporto anche se si presentano con un certo numero di limitazioni dovute dalla scarsità di informazione, sono in grado di descrivere in modo soddisfacente lo scenario europeo degli ultimi 25 anni attraverso l’analisi empirica di 60 casi studio all’interno di alcune aziende pubbliche.
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