Blockbuster and Borders' decline: internal factors, signals, and frameworks

[Elizabeth_G]

I'm an MBA student working on a final project analyzing business failure case studies, specifically focusing on the downfall of once-dominant retail chains. I've chosen to examine the strategic missteps of Blockbuster and Borders, but I'm trying to move beyond the surface-level narrative of "they didn't adapt to digital." For those who have studied these or similar failures in depth, what were the key internal organizational and cultural factors that prevented effective strategic pivots? Are there particular financial metrics or management decisions in the years leading up to their decline that clearly signaled trouble, in retrospect? I'm looking for analytical frameworks to structure my analysis beyond just a chronological summary.