Title
Business failure prediction using rough sets
Abstract
A large number of methods like discriminant analysis, logit analysis, recursive partitioning algorithm, etc., have been used in the past for the prediction of business failure. Although some of these methods lead to models with a satisfactory ability to discriminate between healthy and bankrupt firms, they suffer from some limitations, often due to the unrealistic assumption of statistical hypotheses or due to a confusing language of communication with the decision makers. This is why we have undertaken a research aiming at weakening these limitations. In this paper, the rough set approach is used to provide a set of rules able to discriminate between healthy and failing firms in order to predict business failure. Financial characteristics of a large sample of 80 Greek firms are used to derive a set of rules and to evaluate its prediction ability. The results are very encouraging, compared with those of discriminant and logit analyses, and prove the usefulness of the proposed method for business failure prediction. The rough set approach discovers relevant subsets of financial characteristics and represents in these terms all important relationships between the image of a firm and its risk of failure. The method analyses only facts hidden in the input data and communicates with the decision maker in the natural language of rules derived from his/her experience.
Year
DOI
Venue
1999
10.1016/S0377-2217(98)00255-0
European Journal of Operational Research
Keywords
Field
DocType
Business failure prediction,Rough set theory,Discriminant analysis,Decision rules,Classification
Econometrics,Logit,Decision rule,Set theory,Rough set,Recursive partitioning,Natural language,Linear discriminant analysis,Business failure,Mathematics,Operations management
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
114
2
0377-2217
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
148
13.66
5
Authors
4
Search Limit
100148
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
A. I. Dimitras118919.97
Roman Slowinski25561516.06
Robert Susmaga337033.32
Constantin Zopounidis4106690.47