Analyse de la relation entre les outils de gestion et la procédure de réorganisation judiciaire dans les PME - Expériences d'entrepreneurs et avis d'experts

Abstract

Since 2000, the number of bankruptcies and financially distressed firms has been increasing in Belgium. The consequences related to employment and for the stakeholders are worrying. In 2009, the Belgian State, who has the duty to support business continuity, introduced the Business Continuity Act in order to give distressed entrepreneurs the opportunity to safeguard the continuity of their company.

One possibility offered by the Business Continuity Act to distressed businesses is the Legal Reorganization Procedure. This one is supposed to prevent business failure. However, most debtors usually introduce the legal procedure too late when the chances of recovery are already low what implies that 70 to 80% of the introduced procedures still ends with a failure. Actually the main explanation is that the difficulties are detected too late.

The challenge regarding business failure prevention is high in Belgium because the existing legal tools are not as efficient as hoped. Considering SMEs’ problem to detect difficulties on the one hand and the advantages offered by management tools in terms of performance management and risks mitigation on the other hand, it inevitably raises a question: what would be the relation between management tools and the Legal Reorganization Procedure in SMEs? This thesis tries to analyze this relation.

We will devote the first part of this thesis to establish a theoretical framework. To do that, we will firstly analyze the performance management tools and their place in small businesses. Then, we will describe the Legal Reorganization Procedure, its objectives, the actors involved in it and their roles.

In the second part, we will try to analyze what really happens in practice by conducting an exploratory study combining entrepreneurs’ experiences and experts’ opinions. By doing so, we aim to highlight whether the distressed SMEs, who possess management tools, better experience the Legal Reorganization Procedure than others. We will finally discover whether the Legal Reorganization Procedure experience would have an impact on management tools utilization in SMEs.