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Most mature organizations face a major decline in performance at some time during their existence. For more than three decades, it has been suggested that the management practices that could cure a troubled company could have also kept it well. Inspired by this concept, this paper is proposing a preventive approach to early implementation of turnaround strategies as an alternative for otherwise traumatic rescue efforts, further along the downward spiral.

Corporate turnaround strategies and associated risks are integrated with a risk-based approach, along with a proactive decision-making process. The link between turnaround research, resource-based view, the sources of organizational decline, and the governance of organizational-decline-related risks – is explained.

The integrated model streamlines a preventive organizational process for considering the suitability of commonly used turnaround practices – for the non-crisis business routine of a mature company. By considering and adjusting the risks associated with such practices, it addresses risk aversion at the early stages of decline and determines the optimal sequence and timing of retrenchment and recovery activities. As such, it encourages mature companies to take actions for reducing their exposure to organizational decline. Accordingly, the model is named the “Anti-Aging” framework.

Empirical testing of the suitability of turnaround strategies for non-crisis situations is proposed as a direction for future research.

The Anti-Aging framework opens an opportunity for the senior management of a mature organization to respond earlier to organizational decline and avoid the trauma associated with otherwise more challenging conditions, for the benefit of all stakeholders.

The Anti-Aging framework proposes an innovative way of bridging the gap between the benefits of early implementation of turnaround strategies, and major obstacles faced by willing, traditional management teams of mature organizations.

This paper provides further evidence on a thought-provoking idea, Transgenerational Response, which was previously presented in this journal. It argues that a corporate crisis event can create dysfunctional adaptive attitudes and behaviors which subsequently become embedded in the corporate culture of a firm to the detriment of its long-term performance.

A multi-method approach consisting of longitudinal content analysis of innovation and risk words in corporate annual reports and quantitative financial analysis divided the data into ‘what happened before the crisis event’ and ‘what happen after the crisis event’.

Case studies for AIG and Yahoo illustrate how a crisis event produced chronic financial performance and adaptive cultural responses that include a fall in innovation and an increased emphasis on risk in the years following the incident.

This paper does not make claims of generalisability of the findings. However, it does provide a platform for future researchers to develop this line of reasoning and perhaps extend it to consider why some organizations demonstrate greater levels of resilience when faced with a crisis.

Identifying a Transgenerational Response means that business leaders can identify how a historic event has affected the performance and cultural dynamics of their firm over time. As such, it will be easier to manage the inherited cultural attitudes and behaviours that have combined to consolidate a firms chronic underperformance.

This highly original, evidence-based idea, has the potential to reshape our current understanding of corporate turnarounds, CEO turnover, underperformance and adaptive cultural change.

A neglected area of research in ODC is the turnaround of poorly performing firms such as those under bankruptcy protection. We researched 142 companies that attempted reorganization under bankruptcy protection between 1983 and 2003. Firms deployed one or more of four distinct strategies to turnaround: rationalizing existing resources, developing existing resources, generating new resources, and investing in future resources. Firms that generated new resources, and developed and rationalized existing resources, had the highest probability of emergence. Interestingly firms that sustained their turnaround post-emergence invested in future resources in addition to generating, developing, and rationalizing resources. Implications for ODC are discussed.

Many organizations can benefit from a turnaround mentality even if their balance sheet shows a turnaround in the cost sense is unnecessary. A turnaround mentality can re‐energize and revitalize a company and move it forward. However, not all organizations in need of a turnaround can be saved. The leadership approach required in a turnaround is different than that needed before or after a turnaround. Some organizations are not prepared for that; they have an investment in their leadership team and prefer to think that their leaders are flexible and adaptable.

Existing models of decline and turnaround assume an automatic initiation of a turnaround strategy when decline occurs. However, extended decline over time suggests that the turnaround strategy did not match the causality and severity of the situation. Borrowing from the crisis management literature, this paper argues that a triggering event or events needs to shock incumbent management into realizing that different action is called for. Such triggering events, or triggers, also play a role in the turnaround process by influencing strategies and inducing management changes. Incorporating the need for, and role of, triggers in understanding the decline/turnaround sequence helps explain the iterative and non‐sequential nature of this process.

This paper aims to center on the analysis of corporate recovery from internal ethical failure with the examination of Wells Fargo and Company. To move beyond self-inflicted reputational damage and regain sales traction, successful turnaround companies have embarked on a four-step corporate recovery process centered on four key words: Replace, Restructure, Redevelop and Re-brand. Wells Fargo is one recent addition to these recovery stories.

This paper uses Wells Fargo and Company as a case model to examine corporate recovery. Wells Fargo is just one example of multinational companies that found themselves victims of internal impropriety, poor leadership supervision and unethical strategic decision-making resulting in significant financial losses, drastic declines in stock price and damaged reputation. Using Wells Fargo as an example from the banking industry, the case study approach is an effective way of assessing the viability of the corporate recovery model in various industries.

The corporate recovery model has served Wells Fargo well over the past few years as the stock price climbed nearly 60% in 2021. In addition, increasingly less public discussion about the account fraud scandal has allowed the reputation of the bank to recover as well. By the last quarter of 2021, the bank saw a 15% increase in revenue and an 86% increase in net income over the previous year. It appears that CEO Scharf is well on his way to turning around the prospects for Wells Fargo and the recovery model has proven again that there is a way through self-inflicted corporate damage.

The recovery story of Wells Fargo and Company adds to the litany of successful corporate recoveries where companies have achieved unprecedented turnarounds by following the model of replacing the leadership, restructuring the organization, redeveloping the strategy and re-branding the product. Implementing this four-pronged recovery strategy can help a company not only survive their specific scandal but also move away from reputational harm and get back on a growth trajectory.

There are many reasons why companies drift – or plunge – into financial disaster. Factors such as market share loss, excess debt, management problems, technology changes or credit fluctuations can all play roles. In fact, the number of risks facing corporate officers is enormous today and simply keeping abreast of it all is a colossal task. As a result, not all managers and firms can cope, often resulting in a turnaround situation. The purpose of this paper is to highlight what sets successful turnarounds apart from failures and the most frequent underlying causes of the problems faced by companies in turnaround situations.

This paper makes use of previous literature and work with clients to identify a relevant top ten list of management practices for keeping companies out of trouble.

The academic and professional literature on turnarounds leaves many unanswered questions with respect to what sets successful turnarounds apart from failures. This paper describes ten basic lessons the authors have learned in turning around companies that managements can use to keep their companies healthy.

This paper sets the stage for identifying fundamental, but often overlooked, management practices that lead to financial crisis. Given the disparity in the literature on turnaround success‐rates, the authors suggest that this paper contributes to this literature and also provides unique and timely advice for practitioners.

Despite the recent increase in scholarly interest on organizational decline, the theoretical and empirical inquiry into this topic remains largely disintegrated. Therefore, leaders in corporate settings who are confronted with critical strategic management challenges are ill equipped for orchestrating successful turnaround attempts to secure the revival of their organizations. The purpose of this paper is to bridge this gap in the organizational decline literature.

In this paper, the authors undertake a systematic review of the specialized literature with the purpose of providing an updated account of the extant knowledge base and assisting top managers in their efforts of corporate recovery.

Drawing upon the insights from a number of prior literature reviews and the evidence provided in the sampled studies, this research framework offers an in-depth discussion of major antecedents, consequences and moderators of organizational decline.

The authors seek to make a discerned contribution to the field by advancing a multi-domain agenda for future research that may animate the continuous debate on the most effective strategies and leadership practices for surviving firm decline.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the applicability of developed country turnaround predication models as well as an “in country” developed turnaround prediction model for a sample of financially distressed Malaysian companies over the period of 2000‐2007.

Multiple Discriminant Analysis (MDA) technique was used to determine companies' financial health.

It was found that severity of financial distress, profitability, liquidity and size are significant predictor variables in determining turnaround potential of distressed companies in Malaysia. The findings show that developed country turnaround predication models have relatively better prediction accuracies compared to turnaround model based on Malaysian firm‐level data. These models' prediction accuracies were gauged by comparing their predicated successful/failed turnaround companies (Type I and II errors) with actual classification of successful/failed turnaround companies by the Bursa Malaysia, and it was found that developed country models were better than model developed using Malaysian data in identifying correctly some of the actual successful turnaround companies.

The paper's comparisons show that Bursa's methodology is appropriate in classifying and monitoring the distressed companies.

This is believed to be the first paper to examine turnaround of the companies in Malaysian context.