After Jobs, questions about Apple’s future

But for Apple to thrive without Jobs, it must adopt a more open, less hierarchical management style, said James Post, a professor at the Boston University School of Management. Post criticized the notorious Jobs penchant for secrecy, which for years kept investors largely in the dark about the Apple chief executive’s health and the company’s succession plans. The Apple board of directors should have challenged Jobs’s actions, but rarely did, according to Post.

“There was really pretty poor corporate governance,’’ he said. “There was a board that was dominated pretty much by him.’’

Jobs isn’t the first legendary corporate leader to leave behind nagging doubts about his successors. Similar questions arose after the deaths of McDonald’s Corp. founder Ray Kroc, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. founder Sam Walton, and other executives that seemed inseparable from the businesses they led. Some of those companies, like Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, continued to thrive beyond the tenure of their famous leaders, while others faltered.

Apple has already experienced life without Jobs. Kicked out of Apple in 1985, Jobs was recruited back to save the company in 1997. Not only did Jobs return, but his rescue turned him from goat to hero. It was then that he began the winning streak of iconic products that transformed Apple into a $350 billion consumer electronics behemoth.

At the coffee chain Starbucks Corp. , founder Howard Schultz retired as chief executive in 2000, but came back in 2008 after the company stumbled. He did lead a successful revival of the business, although not quite on the same scale as Jobs at Apple.

One example of a business leader who planned well for his 1988 departure was Wal-Mart’s Walton, according to BU’s Post. “He had a trusted person who followed him as CEO, and they had systems in place, and they were able to continue the Wal-Mart juggernaut,’’ Post said.