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Since its early days, business research has paid special attention to companies in distress
situations. Its main focus has always been on the question of how distressed companies can
successfully turn around. This issue is of major importance to academics as well as
practitioners, but has only been partially answered so far. The reasons for the sparse and
inconclusive research results are manifold. On the one hand, results are frequently hampered
by the lack of exhaustive data and inappropriate research designs. On the other hand, the
research samples under examination are often very heterogeneous, making it impossible to
draw valid conclusions.
In his dissertation, Martin Schmuck analyzes the effectiveness of restructuring measures of
companies in financial distress. In order to overcome the limitations of prior studies, he
focuses on a sample of automotive suppliers; a distinctive, but nevertheless highly important
industry segment. The international sample also makes it possible to accommodate regional
differences. One of the main contributions of this doctoral thesis is that it includes a set of
healthy companies in the research sample and, thereby makes it possible to identify how
individual restructuring measures contribute to the corporate success of distressed and nondistressed
companies.
This dissertation is underpinned by an excellent review of existing research efforts, a carefully
constructed framework of hypotheses, and an extensive data set. The empirical analysis,
conducted specifically for the purpose of this thesis, is based on advanced econometric
methods, as well as an extremely well-structured approach. Both the research design and
research results are a valuable and innovative contribution to national and international
research on corporate turnaround. Martin Schmuck’s dissertation on financial distress and
corporate turnaround provides important new insights into this field, and future research
workers as well as corporate decision-makers in the automotive industry will be able to
significantly benefit from his work. |
