The small and medium sized business sector plays a significant economic and social role in Australia. A large number of these businesses suffer from abrupt financial crises resulting from manmade or natural disasters such as fire, flood, storm, etc, which affect all business sectors in the Australian economy. There are numerous theoretical and empirical models that have been applied in relation\ud
to corporate crisis management. The approach employed in this thesis is developed using a new theoretical framework\ud
based on the elements of (i) financial management theories and policies such as risk management, financial engineering, portfolio theory, CAPM, capital budgeting and\ud
optimal capital structure; (ii) accounting theories and practices including corporate financial distress and financial ratio analyses; and (iii) corporate management theories and principles with major emphasis on corporate governance, marketing management, business ethics and stakeholders analysis