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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of the organizational slack and acquisition experience on acquisition behavior across varying environmental conditions. Drawing from behavioral theory and the threat-rigidity hypothesis, the paper explores firm acquisition behavior, in terms of type of acquisitions, before and during the recent economic downturn.

Using data on 385 acquisitions in Italy in the period 2007-2010, the paper tests hypotheses on how organizational slack and acquisition experience influence the likelihood of cross-border and diversifying acquisitions relative to domestic, non-diversifying acquisitions prior to and during the economic downturn.

Results suggest that the availability of financial resources and acquisition experience both have an important influence on acquisition behavior. Firms with greater slack and acquisition experience were more likely to make diversifying and/or cross-border acquisitions, compared to domestic non-diversifying acquisitions, particularly during an economic downturn, than firms with lower levels of slack and acquisition experience.

The paper extends behavioral theory and threat-rigidity hypothesis, highlighting their applicability to acquisition behavior across varying economic conditions. Slack resources and acquisition experience appear to be particularly salient during challenging economic times.

This study analyses the influence of the recent economic downturn on earnings management (EM), as well as the manipulation of real activities through cash flow from operations (CFO), with a sample of Spanish listed firms from 2004 to 2009.

We find evidence that the recent economic downturn has changed the patterns of firms’ EM. On the one hand, the crisis influence higher earnings generation as indebtedness increase. On the other hand, results support the hypothesis of an opportunistic behaviour of managers with higher firm market valuation. They have incentives to reduce earnings during the recession and push earnings for the recovery phase of the business cycle.

The study finds also a significant relationship between EM and abnormal CFO generation. The downturn influences positive abnormal CFO generation with indebtedness, as well as negative abnormal CFO generation with firm size and market valuation. It has no significant influence through abnormal accruals on abnormal CFO generation.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of brand equity (BE) on stock performance (i.e. stock return, volatility and beta), and compare the performance of a high brand equity stocks (HBES) portfolio with that of the overall market during market downturn, market upturn and total disturbance periods of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Stock performance data and brand valuation estimates are obtained from various sources to assemble a portfolio of HBES and conduct the analyses. Econometric models are estimated to examine the impact of BE on stock performance and compare the HBES portfolio performance versus the overall market.

BE was positively associated with stock return and negatively associated with both types of risk (volatility and beta) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, during the market downturn period, BE was positively related to stock return and negatively related to stock volatility; during the market upturn period, BE was negatively associated with both types of risk; and during the total disturbance period, BE was positively associated with stock return and negatively associated with both types of risk. Finally, the HBES portfolio outperformed the market (S&P 500 index).

The findings advance the extant research by providing evidence pertaining to brands' role in mitigating the impact of unpredictable market shocks and crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, on stock performance. While brands are mostly viewed as drivers of sustained competitive advantage and profitability, their protective role in crisis times is noteworthy.

The research findings potentially help marketing and brand managers to justify marketing spending and craft their strategies to enhance firm performance during crises similar to COVID-19.

The marketing–finance interface can benefit from insights offered by the COVID-19 pandemic, as such crises are becoming prevalent and are capable of damaging various stakeholders' outcomes (firms, investors and customers). The empirical examination is separately conducted on the market downturn, market upturn and total disturbance period attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the current farm economic downturn and credit restructuring by comparing it with the 1920s and 1980s farm crises from both economic and regulatory perspectives.

This paper closely compares critical economic and regulatory aspects of the current farm downturn with two previous farm crises in the 1920s and 1980s, and equally importantly, the golden eras that occurred before them. This study compares key aggregate statistics in land value, agricultural credit, lending regulations, and also evaluates the situations and impacts on individual farmer households by using three representative case studies.

The authors argue that there are at least three economic and regulatory reasons why the current farm downturn is unlikely to slide into a sudden collapse of the agricultural markets: strong, real income; growth in the 2000s, historically low interest rates; and more prudent agricultural lending practices. The current farm downturn is more likely a liquidity and working capital problem, as opposed to a solvency and balance sheet problem for the overall agricultural sector. The authors argue that the trajectory of the current farm downturn will likely be a gradual, drawn-out one like that of the 1920s farm crisis, as opposed to a sudden collapse as in the 1980s farm crisis.

The review provides empirical evidence for cautious optimism of the future trajectory of the current downturn, and argues that the current downturn is much more similar to the 1920s pattern than the 1980s crisis.

Periods of economic downturn can severely affect the performance of firms in general, and retailers in particular. However, all retailers are not equally affected by recessionary periods, with some viewing this time as an opportunity to invest and establish competitive advantage and others cutting back and waiting for the recession to pass. In the light of the current economic downturn, the purpose of this paper is to investigate retailers' strategic response to the downturn, and assess how these responses differ across different organisations in terms of size, geographic location, and sector of operation.

A total of 50 (25 Australian, 25 New Zealand) managers associated with the retail sector (ranging from chief executive officers to store owners) were invited to participate in face‐to‐face interviews, resulting in 28 in‐depth interviews (15 Australian, 13 New Zealand) across a wide range of retail categories. These exploratory data were combined with a review of the literature to explore retailer responses to the current economic downturn.

This paper suggests that there are growth opportunities for retailers during times of economic downturn. Specifically, this paper suggests that large retailers see this as an opportunity to invest in green and sustainable business practices as a means to aid in the recovery of the recession in terms of reducing costs and beyond in terms of developing competitive advantage. Other strategies include: personalised offerings, differentiation via service, realignment of offer to changing consumer value(s), and reduced costs and investment.

The focus of this paper is medium to large sized organisations and, as such, its generalisability to small retailers may be somewhat limited.

Past research reveals that not all the retailers are equally affected by recessionary periods. Given this, the value of this paper lies in providing insight into strategic response to an economic downturn, and providing a foundation for examining these strategies and their link to retail performance via quantitative research.

The purpose of this paper is to review the four large and two small fluctuations in China’s economic growth since the reform and opening up, which can be further divided into five periods of economic upturn and six periods of economic downturn.

This paper also analyzes the performance, causes and practical countermeasures of these fluctuations and summarizes the experience and lessons from the eight aspects of dealing with economic downturn and stabilizing growth since the reform and opening up.

At last, the paper puts forward some measures to cope with economic downturn and stabilize growth under the new normal in the new era.

Any country’s economic growth is a tortuous process with many fluctuations. The rate of economic growth cannot rise or go down straight for a long time, and China’s economic growth is no exception. The drastic fluctuations of economic growth can lead to serious overproduction, waste of resources, increased unemployment, decreased income or supply shortages, rising prices and decline of living standards.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether socially responsible investment (SRI) is less sensitive to market downturns than conventional investments; the legal implications for fund managers and trustees; and possible legislative reforms to allow conventional funds more scope to invest in SRI.

The paper uses the market model to estimate betas over the past 15 years for SRI funds and conventional investment funds during economic downturns, as distinct from during more “normal” (non‐recessionary) economic times.

The beta risk of SRI, both in Australia and internationally, increases more than that of conventional investment during economic downturns. Traditional fund managers and trustees in Australia are therefore likely to breach their fiduciary duties if they go long – or remain long – in SRI funds during economic downturns, unless relevant legislation is reformed.

The methodology assumes that alpha and beta in the market model are constant. Second, it categorises the state of the market into “normal” economic conditions and downturns using dummy variables. More sophisticated techniques could be used in future research.

The current law would prevent conventional funds from investing in SRI. If SRI is viewed as socially desirable, useful legislative reforms could include explicitly overriding the common law to allow conventional funds to invest in SRI; introducing a 150 percent tax deduction or investment allowance for SRI; and allowing SRI sub‐funds to obtain deductible gift recipient status from the Australian Tax Office and other taxation authorities.

The accurate assessment of risk in SRIs is an area which, despite its serious legal implications, is yet to be subjected to rigorous empirical investigation.

The purpose of this study is to examine the food and beverage revenue changes in private clubs in the USA during the economic downturn from 2008 to 2010.

Over 1,000 private club managers in the USA were surveyed to determine the impacts of two economic downturns on their financial performance.

Findings of this study indicated that most clubs experienced a decrease in their overall net food and beverage revenues and consequently experienced significant losses in their overall food and beverage operations, especially affecting private party business in 2010.

This study examined private clubs requiring sponsorship of membership candidates by existing club members in order to maintain their exclusivity, whereas many for‐profit clubs, semi‐private clubs, and non‐private clubs do not require sponsorship. Future studies should investigate if for‐profit clubs, semi‐private clubs, and non‐private clubs experienced the same negative impact on their food and beverage services as the private and exclusive clubs of CMAA explored in this study.

City/athletic clubs are severely impacted during economic downturns because most members only use their clubs for business purposes. Therefore, private club managers, particularly in city clubs, need to take into account expanded promotional strategies to retain or grow member food and beverage revenues during economic downturns.

The analysis of economic downturns and their impact on food and beverage revenues and overall profitability provides valuable information for private club managers in their quests for revenue generation, membership growth and improved profit performance.

Pakistan has experienced financial liberalization with rapid ups and downs in economic growth due to domestic issues during the last 2 decades. Motivated by inconclusive and conflicting time-driven findings about the performance of the business groups, this study examines the performance of business groups in Pakistan for a relatively long period from 2003 to 2018.

The study uses 3,821 firm-year observations from non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). For the estimation, pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) with industry- and year fixed effects and two-step system generalized methods of moments (GMM) are used.

The study finds that group-affiliated firms outperform independent firms in accounting performance, while underperform in market performance. The outperformance is mainly driven by medium-sized business groups, while underperformance is driven by small and large business groups. Further, the study documents that the underperformance in terms of market performance of firms affiliated with small and large groups is greater before the economic downturn, while outperformance in terms of the accounting measure of firms affiliated with medium-sized groups is greater during the economic downturn. These findings support our time-driven concerns. Overall, the authors' findings are consistent with institutional and transaction cost theories.

Business groups are important channels to reduce market inefficiencies. Business groups may enhance the affiliated firms' resources and resistance capacity through active utilization of the internal capital market, specifically when market conditions are not ideal for affiliates. However, effective utilization of internal capital markets depends on group size. Therefore, investors should deliberate on the size of business groups and diversification within business groups.

The authors extend the literature by providing fresh evidence related to the performance of business groups in the Pakistani context while accounting for the role of the size of business groups.

This article offers an up‐to‐date overview of the emergent practice of arts‐based learning in business. First, arts‐based learning is situated within the broader arts in business context as well as our present reality of the economic downturn. Then, the article shares why arts‐based learning has emerged as a new pedagogy in management education. Next, a working definition of arts‐based learning is shared as well as an exploration of how others are conceiving it. Lastly, the article turns attention to the question, what are the strengths and limitations of arts‐based learning, and suggests a couple leading‐edge management education programs that are framed by arts‐based learning approaches.

In addition to the author's expertise in arts‐based learning and his role as executive of one of the world's premier institution's of arts‐based learning in management education/leadership development, the author exchanges ideas with a number of prominent business leaders, artists and respected management educators from around the globe, whose comments about arts‐based learning in business color the ideas presented in the article – adding texture and a richer perspective.

This article directly addresses what has changed since the 2005 special edition of the Journal of Business Strategy. Of course – the economic downturn. And, now, more than ever, this article asserts, that leaders are looking to arts‐inspired creativity, as a means to realize the upside of the downturn. The article asserts an integral role for the arts to play in an organization's efforts to create a culture of innovation – which is central to business strategy in the economic downturn. More specifically, the article documents how new ways of working together in business (resultant from the continued emergence and growth of the knowledge economy) will require new ways of learning how to work together. This article suggests that arts‐based learning may offer such a new way of learning how to work together.

This article affords the reader insights to how arts‐based learning may enable your strategic actions and the innovation upturn that you're being asked to deliver.