Of Kings and Communicators

The king is dead! Long live the king! I remember reading these lines in history class at school. Their lesson was that in a monarchic form of government, succession is known in advance and is immediate on occurrence. There exist rules which state who is next in the succession line and, barring the interference of some barbarian at the gate, the transition takes place automatically. Although modern corporations are certainly not monarchies, it can happen that leadership succession occurs with