Perhaps if those lower in the hierarchy and society as a whole are constantly burned by businesses failing due to incompetent leadership, they might start to expect or demand something different. Socialism? Anarchy? Some kind of socially conscious capitalism? I don't know what form it will take, but it might be something different than what we have now.

Isn't "conscious capitalism" what's being sold to us since the 70's, through the "new spirit of capitalism" ?

Anyways props to ur comment hah

Not to mention the fact that so many companies right now have new leadership that didn't build the company and are stuck, like B&N's here, not in a mode to improve the company but a mode to make sure there's as much meat for picking as possible when it eventually goes down in flames.

It seems like the "Old Business" world is just a nest of snakes eating each other until there's just one left to die of starvation.

Then how would the feedback loop be completed to provide information about which strategies are good and bad?

That's assuming that someone recognizes which strategy was responsible for failure. Blaming the competitors, or the employees, is probably much more comforting and easier for upper management.