This course provides students with a perspective on identifying and remedying turnaround business situations, that is, established businesses experiencing operational, financial and managerial difficulties. Students learn, from the standpoint of a general manager, how to distinguish between "troubled" and "crisis" companies and how to use both qualitative and quantitative tools to effect solutions. The course integrates the functional disciplines of the core curriculum; a basic understanding of accounting and corporate finance is necessary. Cash flow and going concern projections, debt restructuring and liquidation analysis, credit relationships and managerial perspectives are central components of classwork. Assignments are group-oriented projects culminating in a final group analysis of a turnaround candidate.

Kathryn Harrigan

Henry R. Kravis Professor of Business Leadership

Professor Harrigan, who teaches strategic management courses about corporate growth (as well as turnaround management), is a specialist in corporate strategy, strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, diversification strategy, in turnarounds, industry restructurings and the competitive problems of mature- and declining-demand businesses, and in industry and competitor analysis. Most recently, Professor Harrigan has researched the role of technological synergies in corporate strategy. She has served...

View full profile