As companies rise and fall, there is increasing interest in corporate sustainability; however, research on the factors that facilitate a company’s long-term survival is inadequate. This may be due to long-held tacit assumption among scholars that companies with high economic performance will naturally survive (Williamson 1991; Winter 1965). However, economic performance and survival may not be always synonymous (Carroll and Huo 1986; Kalleberg and Leicht 1991; Meyer and Zucker 1989). Consider the following case of Samlip, which was founded in 1945 and is the longest-lived bread maker in Korea. Samlip has been known to Korean consumers for half a century, producing products familiar to Koreans’ tastes, such as cream breads, steamed buns, and pancakes stuffed with brown sugar filling. Samlip also has been famous for maintaining a warm corporate culture and treating employees with exceptional respect, helping them to continue working even after regular retirement. During the 1997 financial crisis, Samlip was in danger of bankruptcy owing to its affiliates’ financial difficulties and filed for court receivership. Upon hearing the news, employees were the first to react. The labor union of Samlip led the ‘‘increasing productivity by 10 %’’ campaign, and workers began the ‘‘work an extra hour’’ campaign, making a voluntary effort to save the company. Also, middle-aged consumers, who had appeased their hunger with Samlip breads in the lean years and had been buying Samlip products for decades, rolled up their sleeves. Samlip received orders increased by 23 % on average compared to before the application for receivership. In addition, more than 150 retail store owners carried out campaigns to increase sales and to reduce accounts receivable, and more than 400 cooperative firms promised their support until management was normalized. What can be seen from the case? Samlip had a history of more than 50 years in 1997 and was on the verge of bankruptcy due to financial losses; however, Samlip survived while many other companies faded into the mist of history during the crisis. Samlip formed a social consensus to prevent losses to society, and many of its stakeholders provided the necessary support to prevent the company from going bankrupt. In addition, its existence may be taken for granted by stakeholders, increasing the possibility of its survival. That is, it can be implied that factors other than economic performance may have an effect on determining corporate survival, especially the sustainable survival of long-lived companies. While the assumption of unidimensionality between performance and survival (i.e., the lowest performing organizations are the least likely to survive) has been firmly entrenched, in many prior studies, scholars have shown that non-economic criteria can play a major role in organizational survival (Carroll and Huo 1986; Gimeno et al. 1997; Meyer and Zucker 1989). For instance, companies that have lost legitimacy because of association with cartels or having a bad influence on society may disappear even if their economic performance is outstanding. Moreover, an organization’s survival can be determined by the influence of the constituent individuals of the organization. For example, executives or employees of a company will voice opinions on the decision making related to dissolution in order to prevent self-loss (dismissal) due to corporate destruction, which lowers the possibility of dissolution if they are highly influential (Gimeno et al. 1997).