This paper investigates whether the management of firms in financial distress applies creative accounting techniques in order to fine-tune the elements of their financial statements. For this purpose, the financial statements of 385 Greek bankrupt firms of the trade and manufacturing sectors for the period 2003 to 2014 were analyzed. The sample was divided into two sub periods; in the period before the financial crisis, that is from 2003 to 2008, and the period 2009 to 2014 during which the Greek economy was in crisis and recession. By applying factor analysis, five financial ratios were selected, which formed the independent variables in a Discriminant Analysis (MDA) and Logit models in order to find those firms  which, while they were bankrupt they were classified in the last period of their operation as healthy (type I error).By selecting these firms  (common to both models), their accounting data for the last two years before they went bankrupt have been investigated in order to determine whether they have been affected by the application of creative accounting methods. The results showed that the management of some of the selected firms applied creative accounting techniques during the last year of operation before their bankruptcy, which led to the manipulation and falsification of the published financial statements during the period before the financial crisis. However, this is not the case for the period 2009 to 2014, because the economic crisis affects the behavior of managers in applying creative accounting, which is owing to the changes in market rules.

In recent years, particularly in the European Union, it is believed that the reduction of labor costs will contribute to the competitiveness and adaptability of enterprises and thus to maintain existing and create new jobs. Since the early 1990s, Greece following the guidelines of the European Union, gradually pushed a series of legislative changes relating to payments, working time, etc. aiming to promote flexible working.This paper examines the relationship of flexible working, employment and unemployment in the Greek labor market. More specifically, we study the evolution of flexible forms of employment during the period 2000-2013 and examine whether these changes had an impact on the overall scale of employment and unemployment. The main conclusion of the study supports findings of other researches that the significant increase in flexible working, particularly after 2009, failed to increase employment and reduce unemployment in the Greek labor market.

PurposeDrawing upon upper echelon, regulatory focus and attention theories and focusing on SMEs, the purpose of this paper is to answer questions on how the motivational disposition (promotion vs. prevention regulatory focus) of CEOs affects their information search patterns (i.e. search selection and intensity) and consequently organizational level engagement in different types of innovation activities (exploration vs. exploitation).Design/methodology/approachA quantitative study was conducted collecting data from the CEOs of SMEs operating in the dynamic wine and spirits industry in Greece. The data were collected in two independent time streams and the proposed theoretical model was tested by applying OLS regression analysis.FindingsThe current research provides evidence that differences in CEOs’ level of promotion and prevention focus trigger different information search selection and search intensity patterns. Nonetheless, the attention to innovation components act as mediators only in the hypothesized relationships between a CEO's level of prevention and promotion focus and exploration. Paradoxically, filtered through attention to innovation and triggered from the same motive, that is to reduce negative emotions, promotion focus CEOs choose to direct resources to exploitation and avoid investing in exploration, whilst the opposite was supported for prevention focus CEOs.Practical implicationsThe results highlight the important role of a CEO's regulatory focus orientation in promoting diverse attention to innovation patterns and firm-level innovation tendencies towards exploration and/or exploitation.Originality/valueThis study's contributions extend and combine the theories of regulatory focus, UET and attention in the field of managerial/entrepreneurship behavior and innovation. Therefore, they are valuable for understanding the determinants of firm-level innovation choices (exploration vs. exploitation) in SMEs.

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