Grey Relational Analysis between Firm's Current Situation and its Possible Causes - A Bankruptcy Syndrome Approach

Purpose – By making an analogy with the human body, the purpose of this paper is to underline the relations between a firm's failure causes and its current situation, in terms of the syndrome that can be identified at its level.Design/methodology/approach – For this reason, some elements taken from medicine, such as symptoms, causes and syndromes are presented and characterized from the point of view of the firm.Findings – It is shown that knowing the type of syndrome and the relation between it and the causes that determined its occurrence, a firm's situation can be improved and its life can be lengthened. The study was conducted on 19 firms and the results are conclusive.Practical implications – By knowing the main causes that determine a certain type of bankruptcy syndrome, the firm's management can properly intervene to establish a new order and a new equilibrium, which can “save” the firm from an imminent collapse, bringing it to a normality situation and even leading it, in future, to increased perf...