Thomas Wittig aims at gaining additional insights into the crisis and turnaround process of SMEs, investigating both, the turnaround success and the impact of turnaround on the family role in family firms. Based on a specifically developed integrated conceptual turnaround model, the author collected a sample of 209 turnaround cases of German medium-sized companies from restructuring experts working for German banks. Employing a variety of carefully selected statistical analyses he identifies key factors for turnaround success and finds specific archetypes of crises and turnaround. The study concludes with an analysis of the impact of a successful turnaround on the family firms within his sample. Based on the study’s insights he provides both, recommendations for future research and a set of practical implications for all relevant stakeholders of a turnaround situation.

This book provides an in-depth introduction to crisis management and leadership in SMEs, as well as methods, approaches and cases against the background of different crises; external ones in particular. Featuring contributions from research and practice, this book covers a plethora of SMEs from different sectors to match the diverse nature of small business practice. The combination of a sound theoretical framework for small firm crisis management along with practical instruments/methods and cases, help to improve the organizational resilience of SMEs. The authors also guide the reader to resources beyond the book, including an online “Crisis Toolkit” comprised of material such as further publications, crisis management blueprints, guidelines, checklists, and company cases on crisis management-related issues.

In response to the credit crunch during the global financial crisis of 2007–2008, many have called for the re-establishment of regional banks in the UK and elsewhere. In this context, Germany’s regional banking system, with its more than 1,400 small and regional savings banks and cooperative banks, is viewed as a role model in the financing of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). However, in line with the ‘death of distance’ debate, the universal application of ICT-based scoring and rating systems potentially obviates the necessity for proximity to reduce information asymmetries between banks and SMEs, calling into question the key advantage of regional banks. Utilising novel ethnographic findings from full-time participant observation and interviews, this book presents intimate insights into regional savings banks and compares their SME lending practices with large, nationwide-operating commercial banks in Germany. The ethnographic insights are contextualised by concise description of the three-pillar German banking system, covering bank regulation, structural and geographical developments, and enterprise finance. Furthermore, the book advances an original theoretical approach that combines classical banking theories with insights from social studies of finance on the (ontological) foundation of new realism. Ethnographic findings reveal varying distances of credit granting depending on the rating results, i.e. large banks allocate considerable credit-granting authority to local staff and therefore challenge the proximity advantages of regional banks. Nevertheless, by presenting case studies of lending to SMEs, the book demonstrates the ability of regional banks to capitalise on proximity when screening and monitoring financially distressed SMEs and explains why the suggestion that ICT can substitute for proximity in SME lending has to be rejected.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Web Information Systems Engineering, WISE 2011, held in Sydney, Australia, in October 2011. The 17 revised full papers and 11 revised short papers presented together with 7 demo papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 96 submissions. The papers contained in these proceedings address challenging issues in software services, Web application engineering and modelling, Web search, social networks, Web semantics, and information retrieval and extraction.

​ Both practitioners and scholars agree that organizations that are ready to cope with crisis should be better able to manage it than organizations which are not prepared. As, due to their company characteristics, family businesses are exposed to additional causes of crisis beyond the usual causes all companies face, preparing for crisis is of specific importance to them. Based on empirical investigations, Pedram Faghfouri shows that non-family businesses are more likely to prepare for crisis when compared to family businesses. The author’s findings let further suggest that the existence of a supervisory board has a positive effect on the degree of crisis readiness of a family business. Moreover, in family businesses with supervisory boards, the involvement of family members in the top management team seems to have a negative effect on the degree of crisis readiness.

With a state-of-the-art perspective on corporate board decision-making that encourages thinking outside the box, this cutting-edge Research Handbook provides fresh insights on the meaning, value, contribution, quality and purpose of the decision-making of those charged with corporate governance.

The role of a Turnaround Manager is to save companies from a seriously unprofitable situation. This may follow a merger, take-over, restructure or as a result of adverse market conditions or mismanagement. A first class Turnaround Manager is more than a short-term 'company doctor'; he or she redefines the company's business mission and restructures it for long-term survival. This book shows how to do this. It includes practical advice from experienced Turnaround Managers, real-life examples of best practice and an objective guide to the principles involved in this increasingly important role.

In the foreseeable future, banks as we now know them will cease to exist. In view of the increasingly digital banking business, the pressure on costs and the reduction in vertical integration, the banking industry in the future will be characterized by technologization and specialization and threatened by the influence and capabilities of the BigTechs. There will need to be drastic changes in the competitive situation, the value creation structures and business models of the banking industry; despite the protection provided by banking supervisors and governance regulations, the core functions of banking - the handling of payment transactions and financing - are no longer the unique key functions that have made the banking industry indispensable within an economy to date. The perfect storm seems to be brewing; as Bill Gates already said in 1994 "banking is necessary, banks are not". Banks around the world are striving to find an adequate response. This book starts by providing a well-founded theoretical basis and then analyses the situation, identifies the present shortcomings and problem areas of the banks and outlines possible approaches to solutions.