Stubbart and Knight make a compelling case for firm life spans as a subject of inquiry for organizational research. The authors join a growing number of practitioners and academics engaged in a quest for an organizational version of Ponce de Leon's 'Fountain of Youth.' A central motivation underlying their paper is doubt over a widespread 'meta-theory' concerning the success and failure of organizations. They state the meta-theory as follows:
''Organizational survival represents a vital objective for firms, managers, and owners. Most organizational theories regard survival as the 'correct' outcome for firms whose managers successfully navigate across a hostile competitive landscape. On the other hand, when a firm 'disappears', scholars, managers, and owners ask, 'What went wrong?' Failure, exit, bankruptcy, liquidation, hostile takeovers, are largely viewed as results of managerial 'bungling'. Many theories about performance, competitive advantage, legitimacy, and leadership rest upon a core assumption that firms, at least some of them, have long, perhaps limitless, life-spans. Long-term survival is not seen as merely a random outcome or an unattainable goal.'' (p. 1)
The authors question this 'received view' by examining how far, if at all, organizations live forever, or whether they simply 'disappear' after brief lives. The assumption is that, if the overwhelming majority of organizations have relatively short life spans, then the meta theory is misguided in believing managers make a difference. As a consequence, much of our research and teaching in business schools would require re-thinking. These are interesting issues! Stubbart and Knight approach their topic by establishing essential questions: 'How many firms survive? How long do firms survive? Who survives? Is (long term) survival the planned result of firstmover advantages, or large size, or market structure, or competitive advantage, etc.?' (p. 3). In other words, the authors seek to establish the longevity (life spans) of organizations. For them, the endpoint of a life span is 'disappearance.' In order to establish the life span of most organizations, Stubbart and Knight review '243 relevant documents' (p. 6) that provide empirical accounts of organizational survival and disappearance. A strength of their analysis is a deliberate use of materials from a range of disciplinary sources.
From their review, the authors reach two main conclusions:
the 'disappearance' of firms, especially new firms, is stunningly common (' . . . any firm that's over 10 years old is already ''old'': it is beating the odds,' p. 9);