Organisational closure: a critique of the literature and some research propositions

Many organisations close each year yet academic understanding of closure is limited and fragmented. Through a review of the organisational decline literature this paper demonstrates that most of the contemporary research on closures has focused on explanations for closures, the affects of job loss on the retrenched workers, union action (sometimes allied with other institutions) which has sought to overturn or mitigate closure decisions and, finally, the often polemical arguments over the appropriateness, features and effectiveness of state-imposed controls over redundancies and closures. Also, very little qualitative and quantitative research has been published which analyses the closure process from the time of the announcement until their final day. From this review, a research agenda is proposed.