Finance capital markets and corporate decision-making processes: The case of W. T. Grant Company's bankruptcy

The effect of capital markets on corporate decision making has been a focus of scholarly attention for more than a century. The existing literature has remained sparse, however, in detailed analyses of the processes and effects of organized finance capital markets on managerial discretion. The case of W. T. Grant Company's bankruptcy illustrates the mechanisms by which the banking community's organized control of the finance capital markets posed a constraining influence on the firm's decision-making processes. This influence extended to the decision to throw the company into involuntary bankruptcy. The case also illustrates finance capital to be both a unique resource (having no alternatives) and a special relationship that, unlike material capital supplier relationships, has long-term consequences for the borrowing firm.