Yes there is much research in this area. Personally, I first got interested in this as a philosophical matter from reading about Toyota and its history (which has been extensively researched)

I think it's interesting that you use the word "despite" here, since of course it's those very companies that provide the data for this area of research.

I don't have time to pull links to papers right now, but there are some referenced in our (rather old now) whitepaper:

https://longtermstockexchange.com/static/principals_for_lt_s...

as well as our original application to the SEC: https://www.sec.gov/rules/sro/ltse/2019/34-86327.pdf

Some of my favorite research shows what happens to pairwise-matched companies where one went public and one stayed private. The effects are totally predictable.