Dynamics of organizational populations : density, legitimation, and competition / Michael T. Hannan, Glenn R. Carroll.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hannan, Michael T.

Contributor:

Carroll, Glenn.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Organizational sociology--Methodology.

Organizational sociology.

Organizational change.

Physical Description:

xv, 286 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : Oxford University Press, 1992.

Summary:

Why does the number of organizations of any given kind vary over time? Utilizing a diverse group of organizations including national labor unions, newspapers and newspaper publishers, brewing firms, life insurance companies, and banks, this book seeks to deepen and broaden the understanding of change in organizational populations by examining the dynamics of numbers of organizations in populations. Such an approach involves explaining the sources of growth and decline in the sum of organizations (what the authors call "density") over the histories of populations of organizations. The authors conclude their study by formulating a theory of density-dependent legitimation and competition.

Contents:

Organizational Populations Studied 6

Analytic Strategy 12

Relation to Other Theory and Research 20

2. Theoretical Approach 25

Competition Processes 26

Legitimation Processes 33

Density, Competition, and Legitimation 37

Density Dependence in Vital Rates 44

Reversibility of Processes 47

3. Models and Modeling Strategy 50

Classical Models of Population Growth 51

Relating Vital Rates to Legitimation and Competition 54

Density Dependence in Founding Rates 60

Density Dependence in Mortality Rates 65

Interpretations of Density Dependence 67

4. Density and Founding Rates 75

Prior Research 76

Methodological Issues 78

Generalized-Yule and Log-Quadratic Models 83

Logistic and Gompertz Models 86

Theoretical Implications 90

5. Interactions Between Subpopulations 98

Multi-Population Models 99

Empirical Results 101

6. Density and Organizational Mortality 116

Prior Research 119

Results 121

Controls for Size and Total Mass 127

Implications of Unobserved Heterogeneity 131

Theoretical Implications 138

7. Complications 143

Levels of Analysis 145

Apparent Reversals 156

Left-truncated Observation Schemes 163

8. Population Trajectories 168

Simulation Methods 170

Simulating Historical Trajectories 174

Density Dependence 179

9. Implications for Social Organization 188

Extending the Theory 190

Issues of Microfoundations 194

Applications to Other Types of Problems 200

Appendix A Designs of Empirical Studies 207

Labor Unions 209

Newspapers and Newspaper Publishers 215

Brewing Firms 220

Banks 224

Life Insurance Companies 228

Appendix B Methods of Analysis 232

Event Data and Stochastic Models of Vital Rates 232

Analysis of Organizational Founding Rates 235

Analysis of Rates of Organizational Mortality 244

Appendix C Simulation Program 248.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [261]-278) and indexes.

ISBN:

0195071913

OCLC:

24009685