"a rare “outlier” phenomenon"

"At its core, the strategic management field asks two intertwined “big picture” questions about business: Why (or perhaps how) do some companies persistently earn substantial profit, while others do not? And what, if anything, can managers actually do about it? Basic economics teaches that, under price competition, profit is expected to trend toward zero, so in a competitive capitalist economy, any large sustained profit should be rare. In the big picture, this is certainly true: In the United States, over half of all new businesses fail within their first four years, [Moi ici: Recordar os números aqui] and even among businesses that do not fail outright, most operate at only a basic subsistence level—barely eking out enough profit to survive. Indeed, out of the 23 million U.S. businesses in 2002, only about 25% had achieved enough success to expand beyond the proprietors themselves and hire one or more employees (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006). And among the many millions of U.S. businesses that have existed over the past century, only a tiny fraction of a percent—just a few thousand—have ever succeeded enough to become publicly traded companies. Out of those, far fewer sustain large profits over an extended period of time. So, when we ask the question of why or how profit persists in a competitive capitalist economy, we are focused on a rare “outlier” phenomenon—a small number of companies that beat some rather long odds."

Imaginem o pensamento de um extorsor fiscal perante estas odds. 

Trecho retirado de "Invited Editorial: The Four Theories of Profit and Their Joint Effects"