Honestly, I think both of those perspectives don't quite explain why Sears died.
Sears died because Eddie Lampert spent years systematically looting the company. If not for Lampert's dismanagement [0], Sears would be in roughly the same position as other department stores like Macy's or JCPenney. Yeah, sure, they're not doing super great, and Amazon is kicking their asses, but they're still keeping their heads above water.
[0] Sic. I'm trying to coin a neologism here. Dismanagement is to mismanagement as disinformation is to misinformation. Mismanagement and misinformation come from incompetence; dismanagement and disinformation come from malice.
> I'm trying to coin a neologism here. Dismanagement is to mismanagement as disinformation is to misinformation. Mismanagement and misinformation come from incompetence; dismanagement and disinformation come from malice.
I've seen “malmanagement” used the way you seem to be trying to set up “dismanagement”, by analogy to the distinction between misfeasance and malfeasance. (Dictionaries seem to view it as a simple synonym of “mismanagement”, though.)
Sears died because Eddie Lampert spent years systematically looting the company. If not for Lampert's dismanagement [0], Sears would be in roughly the same position as other department stores like Macy's or JCPenney. Yeah, sure, they're not doing super great, and Amazon is kicking their asses, but they're still keeping their heads above water.
[0] Sic. I'm trying to coin a neologism here. Dismanagement is to mismanagement as disinformation is to misinformation. Mismanagement and misinformation come from incompetence; dismanagement and disinformation come from malice.