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While store closure announcements frequently appear in newspapers, little is known about the financial impact of store closure decisions on the retailer’s market value. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the stock market reaction to the announcements of retail store closure decisions.

The authors collect data from news articles on store closure announcements in the USA during 1995-2016. Using the four-factor model in an event study, the authors compute the abnormal stock returns for the retail firms due to these announcements.

Based on the authors’ analysis for sample and matching control firms, the abnormal stock returns for store closure announcements are found to be positive overall. The authors find evidence that the positive effects of the announcements are stronger, particularly for the firms which have positive sales growth at the time of the announcements. The authors also report that industry competition acts as a negative moderator in the relationship between announcements and financial impacts.

The authors’ analysis implies the investors’ positive sentiment of store closure announcements as a viable cost-cutting strategy, especially when it is done proactively by better performing retailers. The findings should be useful to the supply chain managers of retail industries in making store closure decisions.

This paper is believed to be the first to address the impact of retail store closure announcements on the stock market. The authors’ approach of categorizing the firms based on their sales growth seems to be the first in the event study literature on corporate restructuring.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the stock market impact of supply chain disruptions for public companies in Japan. The impact in the USA and Japan are also compared.

Using event study on a data set comprising of disruptions announced by Japanese and US companies during year 2000-2013, the authors measure the stock price reaction to supply chain disruptions.

The study finds that the Japanese companies, in an 11-day window around disruption announcement, witness an average abnormal return of −0.61 percent, which is statistically significant. In comparison to the USA, this stock decline is qualitatively smaller, yet statistically indifferent. The abnormal return is found significant in the two days before disruption announcement. However, a follow-up study with a refined data set (where the event date is the earlier of the announcement or disruption date) does not find any significant abnormal return prior to the event date. This difference from US market suggests the possibility of insider trading. Factors such as book-to-market ratio, industry type, and market capitalization did not affect the stock decline.

The research is limited to a data set from Japan and the USA. Further generalization of findings may need studies focused on other countries.

The results are of interest for supply chain managers. The results should also help global investors in making investment decisions.

Most supply chain disruptions management research is focused on companies in western countries. The paper is the first to test the impact of supply chain disruptions in Japan.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the value of information in consumer safety complaints for organizational learning.

Empirical analysis of this study uses a novel secondary data set, which is formed by combining complaints data filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) for potential safety defects, and design change information from 2003 to 2011 model-year vehicles in the USA.

First, the paper demonstrates the value of information embedded in complaints. Second, in the case of radical product redesigns, owing to the lack of direct applicability of consumer feedback based learning, the impact of learning on product safety is found to be muted, third, the results suggest that the safety complaint rates vary by vehicle classes/categories and, fourth, the findings differ from prior research conclusions on vehicle quality. Prior research finds the debuting car models have the lowest repair rates among all car models produced in a given year, but the current study finds the debuting models to have the highest rates of safety complaints.

Quality management literature rarely examines the safety complaints data (which, unlike other consumer feedbacks, focuses exclusively on the safety hazards due to flaws that result in accidents). This paper fills the gap in literature by linking safety complaints with future product quality and organizational learning.