Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss a model to evaluate the top management quality and its impact on the default probability/survival probability of companies operating in the Italian food and beverage industry. The focus is on SMEs and private companies (ie. companies with no external or public rating). The general aim of this paper is to initiate a new field of research enjoying the fast and growing number of information underlying the development of the private lending market (both banking channel and private debt channel) and the recent developments in assessing the managerial styles of leadership.

Design/methodology/approach

The methodology used in the research is a mixed method based on quantitative and qualitative analysis. The authors have followed the sequential mixed methods design (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2007; Almalki, 2016) belonging to a practice perspective (Tashakkori and Creswell, 2007). The two components (quantitative and qualitative) are integrated in the combined approach: a final proposed evaluation model is explained and discussed.

Findings

According to the experience (and private market best practice) the leadership style has a material impact on the survival probability of a company (and, on the contrary, on the default probability of a company). In other words, the leadership style – other variables be equal – can provide significant information to investors about the future evolution of the financial performance and related credit risk. In the paper, the authors provide a useful model (and tool) in order to capture the above mentioned relationship to support investment decisions in food and beverage industry.

Research limitations/implications

While a positive relationship between a participative style of leadership and the financial performance is widely accepted in the literature; there is no published research on the relationship between managerial styles of leadership and default probability/survival probability. There are several workstreams to be performed in future research in order (1) to provide more business evidence and (2) to extent the analysis to further industries (other than food and beverage). The first step is to collect more data and company information on managerial styles of leadership and to start to track, to measure and monitor the evolution of the credit risk over time in each of the four clusters identified in the combined model.

Practical implications

The practical implication is to provide a methodological contribution to develop an evaluation model of top management quality to be used for the certification of the quality system. The proposed evaluation model is intended to support both (1) the ISO quality management system certifiers and (2) financial analysts and auditors in order to assess the going concern and the business sustainability and (3) the credit risk assessment and evolution in investment decisions.

Social implications

The authors believe that a more deep understanding on the effectiveness of managerial styles of leadership on credit risk can improve the credit and investment allocation and to enhance the borrowing capabilities of the food and beverage industry (with relevant implications on number of employees and size of new investments).

Originality/value

This is the first applied research on the link between the default probability/company survival probability and the quality of management in the Italian food and beverage industry.

中文翻译：

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意大利食品和饮料行业的最高管理层评估

目的

本文的目的是提出并讨论一种模型，以评估高级管理人员的素质及其对意大利食品和饮料行业公司违约概率/生存概率的影响。重点是中小企业和私营公司（即没有外部或公开评级的公司）。本文的总体目标是启动一个新的研究领域，享受私人贷款市场（银行渠道和私人债务渠道）发展背后的快速且不断增长的信息量以及评估领导者管理风格的最新进展。

设计/方法/方法

研究中使用的方法是基于定量和定性分析的混合方法。作者遵循了从实践角度出发的顺序混合方法设计（Creswell和Plano Clark，2007； Almalki，2016）（Tashakkori和Creswell，2007）。结合使用两种方法（定量和定性）：最终提出的评估模型得到解释和讨论。

发现

根据经验（和私有市场的最佳实践），领导风格会对公司的生存概率（相反，对公司的违约概率）产生重大影响。换句话说，领导风格（其他变量相等）可以为投资者提供有关财务业绩和相关信贷风险的未来演变的重要信息。在本文中，作者提供了一个有用的模型（和工具）以捕获上述关系，以支持食品和饮料行业的投资决策。

研究局限/意义

尽管参与式领导风格与财务绩效之间存在积极关系，但在文献中却被广泛接受；关于领导者的管理风格与违约概率/生存概率之间关系的研究尚未发表。为了将来的研究，有几个工作流需要执行，以便（1）提供更多的业务证据，（2）将分析扩展到其他行业（食品和饮料除外）。第一步是收集有关领导层管理风格的更多数据和公司信息，并开始跟踪，测量和监视组合模型中确定的四个集群中每个集群中信用风险随时间的变化。

实际影响

实际的意义是为开发用于质量体系认证的最高管理质量评估模型提供方法论上的贡献。提议的评估模型旨在支持（1）ISO质量管理体系认证者和（2）财务分析师和审计师，以评估持续经营和业务可持续性，以及（3）信用风险评估和投资决策演变。

社会影响

作者认为，对领导风格的管理方式对信贷风险的有效性有更深入的了解可以改善信贷和投资分配，并增强食品和饮料行业的借贷能力（对雇员人数和新雇员的规模产生相关影响。投资）。

创意/价值

这是意大利食品和饮料行业中默认概率/公司生存概率与管理质量之间的联系的首次应用研究。