An exploratory examination was conducted of 93 U.S. publicly traded companies that sought bankruptcy protection between 2000 and 2010. The companies were examined for specific failure determinants that affected their organization‘s mortality. Business and operations failure categories were the most salient in explaining non-emergence from a bankruptcy proceeding. Business-related failures reflected a hazard ratio of approximately 2.0 times its baseline, suggesting that business-related determinants may not be within the control of the company. The operations category implied that operational-related failure determinants, on the other hand, may be within the control of the company and can potentially enable the company to emerge from bankruptcy and thus survived to live another day. Pre-bankruptcy failure determinants associated with failure were those companies that reported industry turbulence, excessive or lack of company growth, and price fluctuations as the basis of why they were filing for bankruptcy protection. In contrast, significantly protective pre-bankruptcy failure determinants were indebtedness, competition, business operations, efficiency and reliability of process, and politically or governmentally motivated constraints.