Early warning systems - empirical evidence

Despite the importance of early warning systems (EWS) in revealing weak signals on environmental changes and in constructing a solid base for timely and appropriate business response, particularly against the backdrop of business crises, empirical evidence - especially at the country level - still lags behind. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the practical and theoretical knowledge about EWS by providing empirical evidence from companies located in three different European countries, i.e. Croatia, Austria and Greece. We propose that companies in richer countries, as measured in terms of GDP, have a higher implementation level of EWS and are more likely to meet current state-of-the-art EWS standards while companies in the countries with a lower GDP show a lesser level of development. Moreover, we explore the reasons for not implementing EWS. For our survey we used a structured questionnaire. Contrary to our hypotheses, there are no significant differences among the countries concerning the level of EWS implementation. However, there are some differences as to the kind of EWS. Overall, EWS are predominately short-term oriented and operating in all three countries. The main reasons for not implementing EWS are the shortage of employees and the lack of management initiatives.