Why Companies Thrive Or Die: Ownership and the Path to Perpetuation

Why do some companies continue to thrive for decades and others die after an initial run of success? Much like an airplane accident, company failure is generally the consequence of cascading effects that combine together to overwhelm a previously effective strategy. But the errors that led to those corporate death spirals often can be traced back to a common factor that receives insufficient attention: their ownership model. This paper explores how a company's ownership - whether it is privately held or publicly traded - affects its ability to succeed over the long-term.