IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/asiapa/v22y2005i1p41-63.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Financial Impact of Organisational Downsizing Practices—The New Zealand Experience

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Carswell

Abstract

Partly in response to the Asian economic crisis, many organisations in the Asia Pacific rim reduced staff numbers. This research examines the New Zealand experience of this change intervention from 1997 to 1999. This includes an examination of the impact on financial performance, and how the process followed may moderate such an impact. A questionnaire instrument was designed to measure this, to which responses were received from 155 New Zealand for-profit organisations employing fifty or more people. There is some evidence to suggest that those respondents who had downsized over the period of the study reported lower measures of profitability than those who did not (p > .05). Also, ensuring the procedure was perceived as just by the employees, and offering outplacement help to those who lost their jobs, went some way to improving the financial performance of downsized firms (p > .05). This may suggest that if downsizing is necessary then attention needs to be given to how the process is implemented in order to maximise the financial return. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Carswell, 2005. "The Financial Impact of Organisational Downsizing Practices—The New Zealand Experience," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 41-63, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:asiapa:v:22:y:2005:i:1:p:41-63
    DOI: 10.1007/s10490-005-6417-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10490-005-6417-5
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10490-005-6417-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Shapiro, Debra L. & Buttner, E. Holly & Barry, Bruce, 1994. "Explanations: What Factors Enhance Their Perceived Adequacy?," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 346-368, June.
    2. Sarah J. Freeman & Kim S. Cameron, 1993. "Organizational Downsizing: A Convergence and Reorientation Framework," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 4(1), pages 10-29, February.
    3. Katharine G. Abraham & James L. Medoff, 1984. "Length of Service and Layoffs in Union and Nonunion Work Groups," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 38(1), pages 87-97, October.
    4. Oded Palmon & Huey-Lian Sun & Alex P. Tang, 1997. "Layoff Announcements: Stock Market Impact and Financial Performance," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 26(3), Fall.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. James P. Guthrie & Deepak K. Datta, 2008. "Dumb and Dumber: The Impact of Downsizing on Firm Performance as Moderated by Industry Conditions," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 19(1), pages 108-123, February.
    2. Matthias Brauer & Tomi Laamanen, 2014. "Workforce Downsizing and Firm Performance: An Organizational Routine Perspective," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(8), pages 1311-1333, December.
    3. Reich, Michael, 2012. "The Rising Strength of Management, High Unemployment and Slow Growth: Revisiting Okun’s Law," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt8sc8s1z1, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    4. Dan Goldhaber & Roddy Theobald, 2013. "Managing the Teacher Workforce in Austere Times: The Determinants and Implications of Teacher Layoffs," Education Finance and Policy, MIT Press, vol. 8(4), pages 494-527, October.
    5. Abraham Carmeli & Zachary Sheaffer, 2009. "How Leadership Characteristics Affect Organizational Decline and Downsizing," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 86(3), pages 363-378, May.
    6. Luojia Hu & Christopher Taber, 2011. "Displacement, Asymmetric Information, and HeterogeneousHuman Capital," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 29(1), pages 113-152, January.
    7. Ferracuti, Elia, 2022. "Information uncertainty and organizational design," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(1).
    8. Zand, Fardad & Van Beers, Cees & Van Leeuwen, George, 2011. "Information technology, organizational change and firm productivity: A panel study of complementarity effects and clustering patterns in Manufacturing and Services," MPRA Paper 46469, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Vivien Lefebvre, 2024. "Layoffs in SMEs: The Role of Social Proximity," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 190(4), pages 801-820, April.
    10. William Marty Martin & Audrey C. Davis, 2013. "Alternatives to Downsizing: An Organizational Innovation Approach," International Journal of Business and Social Research, MIR Center for Socio-Economic Research, vol. 3(7), pages 19-27, July.
    11. Henry S. Farber & Helen Levy, 1998. "Recent Trends in Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Coverage: Are Bad Jobs Getting Worse?," Working Papers 781, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    12. Jérôme Hubler & Pierre-Xavier Meschi & Géraldine Schmidt, 2004. "Annonces de suppressions d’emplois et valeur boursière de l’entreprise," Revue Finance Contrôle Stratégie, revues.org, vol. 7(4), pages 107-142, December.
    13. repec:eee:labchp:v:2:y:1986:i:c:p:1039-1089 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Ionela Andreicovici & Nava Cohen & Silvia Ferramosca & Alessandro Ghio, 2021. "Two Wrongs Make a ‘Right’? Exploring the Ethical Calculus of Earnings Management Before Large Labor Dismissals," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 172(2), pages 379-405, August.
    15. Prezas, Alexandros P. & Simonyan, Karen & Vasudevan, Gopala, 2010. "Does offshoring create value for shareholders?," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 179-191, October.
    16. Farber, Henry S. & Levy, Helen, 2000. "Recent trends in employer-sponsored health insurance coverage: are bad jobs getting worse?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 93-119, January.
    17. Østhus, Ståle & Mastekaasa, Arne, 2010. "The impact of downsizing on remaining workers' sickness absence," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(8), pages 1455-1462, October.
    18. Henry S. Farber, 1993. "The Incidence and Costs of Job Loss: 1982-91," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 24(1 Microec), pages 73-132.
    19. Ertugrul, Mine & Marciukaityte, Dalia, 2021. "Labor unions and corporate social responsibility," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    20. Christopher Robertson & Anna Lamin & Grigorios Livanis, 2010. "Stakeholder Perceptions of Offshoring and Outsourcing: The Role of Embedded Issues," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 95(2), pages 167-189, August.
    21. Groening, Christopher & Kanuri, Vamsi Krishna, 2013. "Investor reaction to positive and negative corporate social events," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 66(10), pages 1852-1860.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:asiapa:v:22:y:2005:i:1:p:41-63. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.