Business failure: A comparative look at various approaches and a critical reading of predictive models[La défaillance des entreprises : Regard comparatif sur les diverses approches et lecture critique des divers modèles prédictifs]

The disruptions of the Covid-19 crisis, the aftermath of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the general rise in prices, etc. have left a chaotic impression on companies around the world. In Morocco, local companies and SMEs, in particular, have not been spared. They have been severely impacted, with an unprecedented rate of reported failures. The interest of this contribution is, therefore, to study the academic corpus related to this topic by addressing a number of aspects that seem to us of considerable importance in the current context. To do so, we have proceeded to a bibliographical analysis of the concept of business failure in order to better define it, by presenting its different aspects and dimensions. Thus, the main research question that emerges is: what are the different approaches and predictive models to best assess the risk of business failure? The review of the literature has allowed us to raise the existence of three main approaches to failure, namely the static, dynamic and processual approach and the existence of several types of alternative statistical and probabilistic models to assess and prevent the risk of its appearance.