Preventing corporate turnarounds through an early warning system

Abstract

Bankruptcy proceedings of companies have been all but new phenomena in the business world. Latest cases, encompassing Toys R Us, Fred’s, and Sears in the US as well as Thomas Cook and Air Italy in Europe, demonstrate that managers often fail to run their businesses properly. As an alternative in such a case, managers could prevent potential downfalls through knowledge of a successful turnaround management. Learning about the implementation of an early warning system (EWS) might help avoid corporate turnarounds in the first place. Hence, it is crucial to offer managers a pragmatic and solutionoriented approach. That being said, the authors design a specific EWS that might contribute to bypassing corporate turnarounds at an early stage. By doing so, the article aims at disseminating information on better EWS for public corporations.