Managers of Financially Distressed Firms: Villains or Scapegoats?
比较了最终申请破产保护的公司与表现较好的控制样本公司的管理者决策，发现两者决策相似，且市场对破产公司管理者的更换反应不积极，支持财务困境源于管理者不可控因素或管理者成为替罪羊的观点。
In this paper, we provide evidence concerning the extent to which managers are to blame when their firms become bankrupt. We study a sample of firms that end up in severe financial distress to determine the actions taken by firms' managers as their financial positions worsen. We compare the sample of firms that eventually experience server financial distress (fling for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection) with a control sample of firms that performed better. We suggest that the comparison provides evidence on the way managers act as their firms sink into financial trouble and the extent to which financial distress is the result of incompetence or excessively self-serving managerial decisions or due to factors outside of management's control. We find that managers of Chapter 11 firms and the control forms make very similar decisions and that, on average, neither set of managers are perceived to be taking value- reducing actions. We also find that when managers are replaced in the firms that eventually file for Chapter 11 protection, the market does not respond positively. These findings support the idea that financial distress is due to conditions outside of the control of managers or that the managers are serving as scapegoats.