sacrificing even more profits that may be had by undercutting coca-cola's price? The CEO would be fired.

Markets generally don't follow Econ 101. There are effects beyond first order when it comes to pricing.

Really depends on the concrete numbers and the projections. You could be right, I could be right, I am only saying what I've witnessed historically in general. Greed trumps a lot of other fairly rational courses of action.