Organizational ecology

"Major theory and research in organizational ecology are reviewed, with an emphasis on the organization and population levels of analysis and processes of organizational foundings, mortality, and change. The main approach to organizational foundings examines the roles of density dependence and population dynamics. Six approaches to studying organizational mortality are fitness set theory, liability of newness, density dependence, resource partitioning, liability of smallness, and the effects of founding conditions. Research on organizational change is just beginning to appear in the literature. The convergence between ecological and institutional research is discussed, especially the role of legitimacy in population dynamics, and the effects of institutional variables on vital rates. Some key criticisms of organizational ecology are addressed, and some suggestions for future research are proposed."

"We situate the Special Research Forum on Organizational Ecology in the program of ecological research on organizations. We begin with a broad description of organizational ecologys theoretical and empirical development based on the contents of prior collections of work in the field. We then highlight key issues facing ecological research, outline how the articles in this special research forum are linked by common threads, and discuss their contributions. We close with suggested directions for future research."

"This paper investigates organizational mortality in the early American telephone industry, in which thousands of companies proliferated and failed under conditions of technological change. Drawing on the theory of community ecology, it is predicted that when technologies are systemic, technological change does not necessarily favor advanced organizations. Instead, mutualism is predicted among both advanced and primitive firms, as long as they are technologically standardized and differentiated. Competition is expected when organizations are technologically incompatible or non-complementary. The hypotheses are supported by dynamic models of organizational mortality, estimated using archival data describing the life histories of all telephone companies that operated in Pennsylvania up to 1934 and in southeast Iowa from 1900 to 1930."

"Hannan and Freeman examine the ecology of organizations by exploring the competition for resources and by trying to account for rates of entry and exit and for the diversity of organizational forms. They show that the destinies of organizations are determined more by impersonal forces than by the intervention of individuals by the intervention of individuals."

"Recent research on organizational ecology is reviewed. Three levels of analysis and approaches to evolution are distinguished: (a) the organizational level, which uses a developmental approach; (b) the population level. which uses a selection approach; and (c) the community level, which uses a macroevolutionary approach. Theoretical and empirical research is critiqued within this framework. Proposals to develop organizational taxonomies are considered."