DÉFAILLANCE D’ENTREPRISES : UNE REVUE DE LITTÉRATURE THÉORIQUE ET EMPIRIQUE

Corporate failure is a polysemic, polymorphous, dynamic and a transversal concept that is difficult to circumvent. Since the crisis of 1929, the problem of failure has become a field of investigation and research in its own right (Fitzpatrick, 1932). Thus, this phenomenon has been analyzed in different ways and by different disciplines (Guilhot, 2000). After defining this concept and the set of concepts related to it, the purpose of this article is to present a review of the theoretical and empirical literature resulting from analyzes according to the legal, economic, financial and managerial approaches. Indeed, for the theoretical analysis we begin with the history of bankruptcy from the civilizations of prehistory to the birth of business law and the code of commerce through the Greek and Roman empire , Medieval France and the Islamic civilization. Then, we deal with the economic aspects of business failure by presenting classical theories, neoclassical theories and new theories of the firm. Next, we will discuss the business failure analysis using financial approaches by discussing the structure of capital and firm value as well as the failure of firms by default of investment. Finally, we will discuss business failure according to the managers’ vision by addressing the strategic, managerial and organizational aspects. And for the empirical analyzes, we present the different contributions of the works that have sought to validate empirically the relationship between the failure of firms and various possible explanatory factors.

business failure, theoretical literature review, empirical literature review