Crisis in the European Automobile Industry: An “Organizational Adaptation” Perspective

The paper explores the determinants of corporate crisis through an «organizational adaptation» perspective. In this regard, a research framework recently developed by scholars is at first shown. It is then tested in the European automobile industry through the analysis of the huge Fiat group’s economic and financial crisis in the nineties. Empirical findings are drawn from public archival sources. The discussion of the main results and of the implications for further research on the crisis of firms follow. Among the different methodological and theoretical perspectives on the determinants of firms’ crisis developed by literature, the paper can help to enforce the scientific conciliation wished by scholars.