Summary This paper focuses on the question whether West German firms have experienced an increase in their financial risk position with due implications for the macroeconomy. The investigation is based on a special evaluation of the balance sheet statistics by the Deutsche Bundesbank broken down...

Summary The changes in the financial structures of West German industrial enterprises have been investigated in Größl/Stahlecker/Wohlers (2001). The empirical analysis confirmed the hypothesis that small and medium-sized enterprises are confronted with higher - and even rising - financial...

Summary This paper investigates the borrowing behavior of 2,900 French and 1,300 German firms over the 1987-95 period. Both samples based on data sets of the Banque de France and the Deutsche Bundesbank not only include large but also small and medium-sized enterprises. Applying GMM techniques,...

Zusammenfassung Die CSR-Forschung hat unterschiedliche Arten von Motiven für die Übernahme sozialer Verantwortung in den Unternehmen herausgearbeitet. Allerdings wurde dabei bisher kaum Aufmerksamkeit auf das CSR in klein- und mittelständischen touristischen Unternehmen gelegt. Der...

Zusammenfassung Der Beitrag geht von der These aus, dass die technikgetriebenen Leitbilder des digitalen Wandels, wie sie im Zusammenhang der Vision „Industrie 4.0“ vertreten werden, die Potenziale des menschlichen Arbeitshandelns nicht bzw. nicht ausreichend berücksichtigen. Im Unterschied...

Summary Small and medium-sized enterprises are considered to be the principal generator of new jobs in the industrialised countries at least since the Birch (1979) study. According to this image, they are also stabilising the economy during the business cycles because of the lower volatility of...

Summary The main purpose of this paper is to evaluate corporate debt ratios by size classes in Continental Europe. Evidence is given on a sample of firms in manufacturing industry for ten European countries, all of them being in Euroland apart from Denmark (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland,...

Purpose Using the small-business loan market, this paper aims to test whether a structural shift in access to borrowers’ financial information (i.e. credit ratings) improves market efficiency, thereby improving entrepreneurs’ access to external capital. Design/methodology/approach This...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyze recent findings in the research on bankers' lending decision making, to merge relevant findings in psychology and economics and create a comprehensive review of the literature. Design/methodology/approach – The authors used a systematic...