Sustainability Calling

8Evolution of Life Principles: Application to a Corporate Population

8.1. Introduction: corporate aging and dying

In the specific context of a corporation, the main questions and concerns that we can state about its populations are as follows:

1. Does an “aging economy” exist? This question is quite natural since the first question, in any innovative system is: how to define a development economy, in poor and new growing countries?
2. What are the main topics of such emerging economies?
3. Is an aging society less dynamic and less attractive than a growing new economy?
4. Is the aging of companies in western countries correlated with steady and stagnant economy?
5. What is the impact of aging on the maintenance and survival costs of enterprises?

Before attempting to answer these questions, and study the particular case of business companies, we need clarification concerning how the people, a country or companies exploit a new technology (e.g. the bronze or iron, the Internet, etc.), new resources (e.g. human force potential, robots, etc.) or even a new energy (fire, coal, oil or nuclear, etc.). In the following, all these means will be included in a general concept called “potential”.

When an organization uses a new “potential”, it usually develops itself to the extent allowed by this potential, prior to a breakthrough, that is to say, prior to it has the ability to relaunch its development or to stop its activity. Hereafter, we will take a few examples:

• – when our ancestors invented and ...