Toward Improved Theory and Research on Business Turnaround

Abstract

Statistics on business failure rates corroborate the conclusion that neither academics nor practitioners have succeeded in designing a model to guide strategic management action during periods of financial decline. Therefore, a comprehensive review was conducted on the turnaround literature from multiple disciplines and related research streams. The product of this work is an empirically-driven conceptual model of business level turnaround. Building on data-supported hypotheses from prior research and confirmatory anecdotal evidence from practitioner literature, the model is intended to help focus future theory testing efforts and to accelerate the advancement of strategic management practice.