This work describes the results of a research project carried out from a qualitative approach and an interpretative epistemological positioning. Our research tries to contribute to answering the question: Why do the companies die? We do this through a case study carried out in an enterprise placed in the information and communication technologies sector, which is explained by the firm’s life cycle perspective (birth, growth, maturity, decline, rebirth and death), for 38 years of business longevity, a no usual life expectancy in an industry as competitive as this one and, particularly, in a country like Colombia. During this period, in fact, the enterprise faced the usual obstacles of a highly competitive market in a turbulent environment, until its death. The main causes of this result are related to an autocratic leadership with deep ethical lacks and, besides, to an excessive leverage that ended in a financial imbalance, when the payments’ cessation induced by the suspension of cash flow was presented. The results were attained by means of the document analysis of the empirical data obtained (internal and external information) and the application of unstructured interviews with some key collaborators and managers of the firm, and by the consideration of key financial indicators (without necessarily link our research to a quantitative approach) taken into account in the bankruptcy prediction models.
