where mid-sized corporations fear to tread
Might be an accurate description of the themes in this informative book. Studebaker was a successful wagon maker at the turn of the last century, and got involved in car manufacture just as the market waxed. But they experimented with electrics and large, expensive cars before realizing that most of the profit was in the lower/lower middle sector.
They then tried to grow via merger (first with a maker of economy cars, then with with a heavy truck company), but Studebaker was too poor to buy out these firm's shares. Nonetheless, the merger attempts nearly bankrupted Studebaker, which was bailed out by powerful banks. However, to retain the confidence of these banks,most profits had to be returned to shareholders as dividends. By the 1950's, the US auto industry was a rather low margin business, and Studebaker could not manufacture cheaply and efficiently enough to compete.
In a rough sense, the events reminded me of of ALCO, which went from making steam locomotives to diesel ones, but like Studebaker, couldn't really afford to compete with GM. ( )

Studebaker (Subject)