Is a purpose-driven company more likely to profit?

Let's say you decide to start a company. And this company could do anything: sell shoes or medical devices, develop computers or give financial advice.

But there's one ingredient this company must have to be successful: a purpose. Never mind your corporate structure or even your business model.

Formerly relegated to the self-help section in bookstores, the purpose movement has found new life in the business world. Fueled in part by books such as business guru Jim Collins' "Good to Great," the idea is that successful companies often have a deeper purpose beyond making a profit.

"If you build a business solely to make money, that is a recipe for failure," said John Moore, a marketing consultant who used to work at Starbucks and Whole Foods. A business has to have a reason for existing, otherwise its customers will go somewhere else, Moore said. The recent bankruptcies of Linens N Things and Circuit City, he said, are examples of what happens to purposeless companies. …