한국기업의 도산원인

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The purpose of this study is to investigate the causes of bankruptcy of Korean companies through survey methods. Total 104 companies which were bankrupt between 1990 and 1998 were selected for this study. According to the statistical analysis of survey data and interview with former and current top managers of bankrupt companies, the following findings were drawn. First, in general, the internal factors such as corporate structure and investment decision had heavier weights on the causes of bankruptcy than the external factors such as business cycle and market condition. This result is the same as those of previous researches done in 1980`s and 1997. Second, compared to the bankruptcy causes of companies bankrupt before IMF crisis, the specific causes of bankruptcy after IMF crisis were the unexpected burden of financial costs due to the upturn of foreign exchange rates and interest rates, increase of operating losses because of foreign exchange loss, successive bankruptcy resulting from the relevant firms which were the father companies or had some equity investments, and the failure of borrowing money from the main banks in case of emergency. Third, the first and second most important causes of bankruptcy found in the survey were the funds and business cycle in the external factor and corporate structure and investment decision in the internal factor. In fact, the two causes had the same importance because the survey results had almost equal numerical points. The third causes were financial factor, marketing factor, market factor, and other factors. Finally, the most important key solution to the bankruptcy was restructuring of business, followed by right decision of investment and the financial flexibility in emergency.