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Introduction: Financial failure is a concept that may arise from many internal and external factors such as operational, financial, and economic items and may incur serious losses. Over-indebtedness arising from managerial misjudgments may cause high financial distress, insufficiency, and bankruptcy. In this regard, determination of effects of capital structure decisions on financial failure risk is crucial.

Aim: The main purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between capital structure decisions and financial failure risk. For this purpose, data from Borsa Ä°stanbul (BIST) for listed food and beverage companies for the period from 2004 to 2019 is used. Another purpose of this study is to compare the financial failure models considering capital structure theories.

Method: In the study, capital structure decisions are associated with five different financial ratios; while the financial failure risk is proxied by financial failure scores of Altman (1968), Springate (1978), Ohlson (1980), Taffler (1983), and Zmijewski (1984). Therefore, five different panel data models are used for testing these hypotheses.

Findings: The results of panel data analysis reveal that capital structure decisions have statistically significant effects on financial failure risk for all models; however, those effects vary from one financial failure model to another. Also, the results show that in the models in which financial failure risk is proxied by the Altman (1968) and Taffler (1983) scores, the aggressive financial policies increase the financial failure risk. However, regarding the models in which financial failure risk is proxied by the Springate (1978), Ohlson (1980), and Zmijewski (1984) scores, aggressive financial policies decrease the financial failure risk.

Originality of the Study: To the best of our knowledge, this chapter is original and important in terms of revealing the effects of capital structure decisions on the financial failure risk and comparing the financial failure models.

Implications: The results revealed that the risk of financial failure models represented by Altman (1968) and Taffler (1983) scores are found to be statistically stronger and more successful in meeting theoretical expectations compared to other models. Therefore, it would be more appropriate to refer Altman’s (1968) and Taffler’s (1983) financial failure models in financial failure risk measurements.

The main purpose of this chapter is to estimate a model for hedge fund returns that will endogenously generate failure probabilities using panel data where sample attrition due to fund failures is a dominant feature. We use the Lipper (TASS) hedge fund database, which includes all live and defunct hedge funds over the period January 1994 through March 2009, to estimate failure probabilities for hedge funds. Our results show that hedge fund failure prediction can be substantially improved by accounting for selectivity bias caused by censoring in the sample. After controlling for failure risk, we find that capital flow, lockup period, redemption notice period, and fund age are significant factors in explaining hedge fund returns. We also show that for an average hedge fund, failure risk increases substantially with age. Surprisingly, a 5-year-old fund on average has only a 65% survival rate.

In this chapter, I suggest three conceptual tools developed by William R. Freudenburg and colleagues that characterize the failure of institutions to carry out their duties – recreancy, atrophy of vigilance, and bureaucratic slippage – are of use beyond environmental sociology in the framing of the September 11, 2001 disaster. Using testimony and findings from primary materials such as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Joint Inquiry hearings and report (2002, 2004a, 2004b) and the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (2004) alongside insider accounts, I discuss how Freudenburg’s tools have the potential to theorize institutional failures that occur in national security decision making. I also suggest these tools may be of particular interest to the U.S. intelligence community in its own investigation of various types of risk and failures.

The overall objective of this research was to elucidate the ecosystem of women’s health social enterprises (WHSEs) based in the United States. The Aim I was to conduct a secondary data analysis of a random national sample of non-profit WHSEs based in the United States regarding their characteristics and areas of intervention. Aim II was to conduct a qualitative assessment of a sample of WHSEs based in the United States regarding their perspectives on the ecosystem of WHSEs. Aim I utilized the GuideStar database and assessed enterprise size, geographic location, financial distress, health intervention area, and health activity category using descriptive statistics, statistical tests, and multivariable regression analysis via SPSS. Aim II utilized in-depth interviewing and grounded theory analysis via MAXQDA 2018 to identify novel themes and core categories while using an established framework for mapping social enterprise ecosystems as a scaffold.

Aim I findings suggest that WHSE activity is more predominant in the south region of the United States but not geographically concentrated around cities previously identified as social enterprise hubs. WHSEs take a comprehensive approach to women’s health, often simultaneously focusing on multiple areas of health interventions. Although most WHSEs demonstrate a risk for financial distress, very few exhibited severe risk. Risk for financial distress was not significantly associated with any of the measured enterprise characteristics. Aim II generated four core categories of findings that describe the ecosystem of WHSE: (1) comprehensive, community-based, and culturally adaptive care; (2) interdependent innovation in systems, finances, and communication; (3) interdisciplinary, cross-enterprise collaboration; and (4) women’s health as the foundation for family and population health. These findings are consistent with the three-failures theory for non-profit organizations, particularly that WHSEs address government failure by focusing on the unmet women’s health needs of the underserved populations (in contrast to the supply of services supported by the median voter) and address the market failure of over exclusion through strategies such as cross-subsidization and price discrimination. While WHSEs operate with levels of financial risk and are subject to the voluntary sector failure of philanthropic insufficiency, the data also show that they act to remediate other threats of voluntary failure.

Aim I findings highlight the importance of understanding financial performance of WHSEs. Also, lack of significant associations between our assessed enterprise characteristics and their financial risk suggests need for additional research to identify factors that influence financial performance of WHSE. Aim II findings show that WHSEs are currently engaged in complex care coordination and comprehensive biopsychosocial care for women and their families, suggesting that these enterprises may serve as a model for improving women’s health and health care. The community-oriented and interdisciplinary nature of WHSE as highlighted by our study may also serve as a unique approach for research and education purposes. Additional research on the ecosystem of WHSE is needed in order to better inform generalizability of our findings and to elucidate how WHSE interventions may be integrated into policies and practices to improve women’s health.

Long-term stewardship (LTS), the caretaking of hazardous materials, is one of the main unanticipated challenges of high modernity. LTS refers to the process of protecting public health and the environment through the effective management of systems or materials over multiple generations, in some cases over many many generations. It arises from the recent realization that the full remediation of contaminated waste sites is beyond scientific knowledge, best technologies, or available resources.¹ Some materials will demand care and risk management over several generations while others, such as high-level nuclear waste, will require a succession of generations that exceeds the longevity of any civilization known to history.

Learning theory explains how organizations change as a result of experience, and can be used to predict the competitive strength of individual organizations and competitive pressures in organizational populations. We review extant learning theoretical propositions on how competitive strength is affected by experienced competition, founding conditions, and observed failures of other organizations. In addition, we propose that niche changes are an important source of learning. We test these propositions on data from the Norwegian general insurance industry. We find that historical density increases failure rates, contrary to some earlier findings, and also that the effect of founding density supports the density delay rather than trial-by-fire hypothesis. We find that failures of others before and during the lifetime of the organization reduce failure rates, and niche changes reduce failure rates for joint-stock companies but not for mutual firms. Overall the findings suggest that organizations learn more cheaply from the failures of others than from their own experiences, and that the stresses of competition can overwhelm the learning effects of competition.

The aim of this chapter is to investigate the relationship between ethics, risks of compliance failure and strategic value of global responsibility for BRICS companies. The first part of the chapter adopts a theoretical approach: it introduces and analyzes the key role of compliance risk management for sustainable and successful development of companies. The second part of the chapter uses an empirical approach, based on the case study method. The chapter focuses on the BRICS. The chapter demonstrates that mere formal compliance with laws, recommendations, and internal codes is not sufficient for companies that want to be responsible and attract stakeholders’ consent and resources. A shared background of ethical principles is required for a proper understanding of the rules, in order to prevent the risk of compliance failure and limit the global risk exposure of a company. Due to the business perspective adopted in the research, this chapter leaves out the sociological aspects regarding how to create, spread, and strengthen the culture of compliance within a company. The chapter encourages companies to connect ethical principles and compliance with the rules. Indeed, a lack of ethics in business operations, obscured by formal compliance, often results in indirect negative impacts on stakeholder relationships, so it is only a futile attempt to act responsibly. The originality of the chapter consists in suggesting the adoption of a responsibility-oriented approach for compliance risk management.