Research background: Indebtedness indicators are used to monitor the structure of corporate financial resources. The company's share of its own and foreign resources affects the financial stability of the company. A high share of own re-sources makes the company stable, and independent. With a low share, on the contrary, the company is unstable, market fluctuations and credit uncertainty can have serious consequences. However, foreign capital is cheaper, and too high indebtedness ratios can jeopardize the existence of enterprises.
Purpose of the article: In general, the economic recession worsens the capital structure of enterprises, especially their debt management. Thus, the paper aims to apply the set of 13 indebtedness ratios to a sample of 779 Slovak and Czech enterprises from the construction sector to determine key microeconomic determinants that may influence the level of indebtedness.
Methods: A non-parametric one-way analysis of variance ? the Kruskal-Wallis test ? was used to determine whether the set of indebtedness ratios is the same across countries, districts, and sizes. For analyzing the specific sample pair of stochastic dominance, the pairwise comparison was realized using the Dunn'stest with Bonferonni correction. The Mann-Whitney test was used to compare the differences in the set of indebtedness ratios between two independent groups of enterprises, based on their legal form and country.
Findings & value added: The level of total indebtedness ratio and the self-financing ratio depends on the region as well as on the size of the enterprise and the legal form. In the case of credit indebtedness and debt-to-cash-flow indebted-ness, their dependence on the size of the enterprise and the legal form is obvious. The importance of the region and the legal form of enterprises, vice versa, affect the level of the financial independence ratio. These outputs are relevant for au-thorities, policy makers, or financial institutions to identify financial constraints that construction enterprises face and, as a result, make a long-term contribution to theory in this field.

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Distinctive determinants of financial indebtedness: evidence from Slovak and Czech enterprises


Purpose
The objectives of this paper were twofold: to explore if there are differences in the perceptions about supply chain performance (SCP) and relationship quality (RQ) among traditional food supply chain members, and to examine the influence of individual relationship variables and aggregated relationship quality on SCP in the traditional food sector.


Design/methodology/approach
The survey was conducted in a triadic context with 189 supply chain members (62 suppliers, 65 focal companies and 62 customers) of 65 traditional food supply chains (cheese, olive oil, meat products, brandies and liqueurs, wine and honey) in Croatia. The influence of individual relationship variables and aggregated RQ on perceived SCP was tested using regression analysis.


Findings
It was found that there were no significant differences in the perception of overall SCP and RQ among supply chain members. It was identified that aggregated RQ and all individual relationship variables (trust, commitment, economic satisfaction, non-coercive and coercive power, reputation and conflict) have a significant influence on perceived SCP of the traditional food supply chains.


Practical implication
This study provides a systematic approach to investigate the SCP and supply chain RQ in the traditional food sector. The findings suggest that managers should not neglect any aspect of supply chain relationship to keep high SCP and to be competitive on the market.


Originality/value
This multiple supply chain study makes an original empirical contribution to the supply chain and network management literature by using a triadic approach to investigate RQ and SCP. The influence of individual RQ constructs and aggregated RQ on traditional food SCP examined in this study has not been explored thus far. This study also makes an original empirical contribution by investigating RQ and SCP in the traditional food sector, which has received little attention recently.


Assessment of traditional food supply chain performance using triadic approach

Social work theory.

The article studies the determinants of short-term liabilities of financially distressed small and medium-sized enterprises in Bulgaria. The research is based on data from the financial statements of one hundred non-financial enterprises in different industries in the period from 2014 to 2016, provided by the National Statistical Institute. A company is defined as financially distressed if it cannot cover its short-term liabilities with its operating cash flow. By employing multiple regression analysis, we design a model, which shows the positive impact of the levels of net sales revenue, inventory, receivables from customers and suppliers and financial assets, and the negative impact of the ratio of current assets to total assets on the short-term debt of financially distressed SME-s.

Determinants of Short-term Liabilities of Financially Distressed SME-s

This paper investigates whether a higher level of long-term credit provision affects the growth of small and young firms Firm-level data from more than 20,000 firms in 62 countries are combined with a new hand-collected database on short-term and long-term credit provided to the private sector Using a difference-in-difference framework, our results indicate that, contrary to short-term credit, long-term credit does not stimulate growth of small and young firms This finding is, at least partially, explained by the differential impact of short-term and long-term credit provision on small and young firms' access to credit While the provision of short-term credit alleviates credit constraints faced by small and young firms, a larger provision of long- term bank loans has an opposite impact Our findings are in line with the hypothesis that an increase of long-term credit provision reects a lender's choice to provide more financing to existing clients (intensive margin) to the detriment of firms without previous access to finance (extensive margin)

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The provision of long-term credit and firm growth

We developed a model to demonstrate how multiple interrelated aspects of a firm influence its recourse to third-party financing, which frequently depends on the characteristics of each food production chain.,We conducted an empirical research on a relevant sample of small- and medium-sized Italian dairy firms. Our research methodology is inspired by the grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967).,Our findings illustrated that firm indebtedness is the result of intertwined variables, linked to different firm dimensions, including growth, financial structure and economic dynamics.,A portion of the analysed phenomenon is not explained using the sample and econometric tools.,There are practical implications for the decision-makers in a firm (in particular, the managers and the shareholders) as the model allows to evaluate the influence of a set of mutually interdependent firm variables for the indebtedness level.,First, we considered the recourse to third-party financing within the context of the systems theory (Millova and Blatný, 2015) and from the perspective of linked causes and mutually connected variables. Second, our research focussed on a well-defined food chain and on features of firms operating in this context. Last, our model considered the impact of the recent economic crisis, which motivated us to review the existing models.

Enrica Pollonini

Papers

Factors driving indebtedness among small- and medium-sized dairy companies