Competition Impacts on the Financial Distress of Firms in the Healthcare Sector in India

Competition assures improved products and services to meet customers’ needs. The soundness of a firm’s financial health is crucial for the country’s economic well-being. Distressed companies cause investor panic, which has a knock-on effect on the economy and leads to a deterioration in the image and value of the companies. This paper aims to empirically investigate the influence of competition on financial distress (FD) in the healthcare industry using the Altman Zscore values as the proxy for FD. This study uses secondary data from ten healthcare companies operating in India between 2016 and 2020. The study’s findings indicate a significant negative relation with the exogenous variables of the study, implying that a higher level of competition enhances a firm’s FD or adversely affects financial health. The main implication of the study is two-pronged. Firstly, the firms’ managers and decision-makers need not worry about competition as a deterrent to stability. Secondly, the policymakers need not be concerned that high competition may lead to financial stress for the firms. Therefore, this paper concludes that competition is good for firms operating in India.