The elephant is in the room—a metaphorical idiom for an obvious problem or risk that nobody wants to discuss. This abstract is not intended to be a summary, to reveal major findings, or unveil conclusions. On the contrary, it is aimed to provoke curiosity as to the question of corporate survival. Is there any recipe to be followed for companies to achieve this? The answer comes neither from the modest and traditional study rooms of philosophers nor the recent fact‐based studies from the offices (and well‐paid opinions) of business consultants. The Archimedean point from which we can objectively explore the subject of corporate survival does not exist. Instead we offer seven analogies (or metaphors) as intellectual platforms where new perspectives can be considered. Innovation obviously plays a major role in corporate survival—yet, by its nature all innovation is messy. In order to reduce entropy, this abstract reveals some keywords in alphabetical order starting from A, such as ambidexterity, architecture, and ant colonies, moving on to B, such as, (mental) boxes and biodiversity. For obvious reasons, C plays a major role—sufficiently that we have already revealed curiosity as one part of the answer—treading over to D (Darwin, DNA, and discontinuity), followed by E (earthquakes and evolution). As a final warning signal in order to manage the expectation: It is not the intention of this article to give a comprehensive overview about the rich and complex history of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. Indeed, only the final chapter will provide reference to this company: Before the curtains will finally close, an epilogue will start in which one of the protagonists of the 350‐year journey of the company—Emanuel Merck—will appear on the stage and “let history speak for itself”. Still curious?

中文翻译：

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企业长寿的秘诀：从“管理创新”的角度

大象在房间里，这是一个隐喻的成语，用于解决任何人都不想讨论的明显问题或风险。本摘要无意作为摘要，揭示主要发现或揭示结论。相反，其目的是引起人们对公司生存问题的好奇心。公司要实现这一目标，有什么可遵循的方法吗？答案既不是来自哲学家的谦虚传统研究室，也不是来自商业顾问办公室最近基于事实的研究（以及薪酬丰厚的观点）。我们可以客观地探讨公司生存主题的阿基米德观点不存在。相反，我们提供了七个类比（或隐喻）作为可以考虑新观点的知识平台。创新显然在企业生存中发挥着重要作用，但是，从本质上讲，所有创新都是混乱的。为了减少熵，此摘要按字母顺序显示了一些从A开头的关键字，例如歧义度，建筑和蚁群，然后移至B，例如（心理）框和生物多样性。出于明显的原因，C起着主要作用-足以说明我们已经将好奇心作为答案的一部分-扩展到D（达尔文，DNA和不连续性），然后扩展到E（地震和演化）。作为管理期望的最终警告信号：本文无意对德国达姆施塔特的默克股份公司的丰富和复杂的历史进行全面的概述。的确，只有最后一章可以为该公司提供参考：在最终关闭帷幕之前，结语将开始，公司350年旅程的主角之一伊曼纽尔·默克（Emanuel Merck）将出现在舞台上，“让历史为自己辩护”。还在好奇吗？