Table 1.

Dimensions of business failure research and new research questions.

Dimensions	Key insights	New research questions/agenda
Deterministic (environmental factors) perspective encompasses theories such as institution-based view and the industrial organization.	•Exogenous shocks such as technological breakthroughs and deregulations can precipitate business failures.	•To what extent can the COVID-19 pandemic create novel conditions for business failure to occur? •How can organizations capture the positive effects of others’ failure stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic? •How can businesses minimize the negative effects of others’ COVID-19 pandemic-induced failures?
Voluntaristic (firm-specific) perspective encompasses theories such as dynamic capabilities, routine-based perspectives, and organizational ecology.	•Resource-rich firms are able to buffer the effects of environmental changes. The possession and utilization of sub-optimal resources and capabilities can cause businesses to fail. •Inferior resources and capabilities, faulty routines and processes, and unsuitable capabilities are sources of misfits. •Firms’ age and size play an important role in failure.	•What role do political resources play in buffering organizations against environmental shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic? •To what extent can the COVID-19 pandemic render firms’ current resources and capabilities obsolete? •To what extent can the COVID-19 pandemic render firms’ routines obsolete? •How do firms renew their capabilities and resources to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and black swan events? •Do firms with narrower experiential bases cope worse with novel crises? •How does industry life cycle moderate the impact of external crises and firms’ survival and superior performance?
An integrated perspective (internal-external interface)	•Misalignment is a powerful source of business failure.	•How does the interaction of firm-level and external (COVID-19) factors determine the pace of business failure? •How does the uneven access to political resources affect how organizations cope with the effects of institutional misfit and the COVID-19 pandemic? •As legitimacy needs of organizations have apparently diverged, how do organizations that lack market dominance and/or political influence cope?

Sources: synthesized from: Amankwah-Amoah & Wang, 2019a, 2019b; Amankwah-Amoah, Boso, & Antwi-Agyei, 2018, 2018b; Bradley, Aldrich, Shepherd, & Wiklund, 2011; Habersang et al., 2019; Headd, 2003; Mellahi & Wilkinson, 2004; Thornhill & Amit, 2003; Zhang, Amankwah-Amoah, & Beaverstock, 2019.