Riding the wrong wave: Organizational failure as a failed turnaround. Long Range Planning 38

This article proposes that a failing organization goes through a sequence of four stages before finally landing in the morass of death. A four-stage model is proposed to describe this journey, which can lead to failure or to turnaround. By categorizing the elements of failure or turnaround, the model explains how the elements germane to each stage, when combined, facilitate the progression of an organization from crippling deterioration in performance to eventual death or to re-stabilizing survival. To support our contention, we focus on the Canadian retail industry, and specifically on the story of the once very successful but now extinct merchandising icon T. Eaton Co. Ltd., contrasting its fortunes with those of fellow Canadian retail survivors Hudson’s Bay Company and Canadian Tire. 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved The current rage for courses of study in North American universities is crime scene investigation. Based on the popular U.S. TV show CSI (Crime Scene Investigation), students are applying in vast numbers to study forensics, and a number of schools that do not offer this course of study are working on developing it.1 It seems that people are far more willing to study the rather squeamish matter of vicious crime and even murder than to look at the somewha