Questions and Answers of Organizations Evolving

Considering the startup activities mentioned in Figure 4.1, what types of environments are likely to encourage some to be pursued more quickly than others? When does the pursuit(or completion) of
It can be argued that both women and ethnic minorities are attracted to entrepreneurship due to prejudice they face in traditional employment relationships. However, rates of entry into
A robust finding in the literature on entrepreneurship and the life course is that the relationship between age and entrepreneurial activity tends to be curvilinear, with respondents around the
Select an organization for analysis, using archival and/or interview data. Describe the events that created the organization. When did they occur? Who were the key entrepreneurs involved in the
Employing the definition of formal organizations as goal-directed, boundary-maintaining activity systems, identify some problematic cases in the ‘gray area’ between organizations and other social
Some methodological individualists argue that the study of organizations is reducible to the study of individual participants and stakeholders. How would you defend the idea of an organizational
In our review of descriptive organizational statistics, we noted that past research has often been developed based on biased views of the organizational landscape (e.g. the misconception that large
Find and evaluate a source of information on businesses or non-profits in another nation. You may use the Internet, but should also consult with your reference librarian for help in locating reliable
Map the organizational population of your community. Prepare a distribution of firms by employment size.
Interview a local politician or public administrator about changes in the local business population.
Write your own ‘organizational autobiography’ in terms of the organizations that have shaped your life.
We use the evolutionary approach as a metatheoretical framework to integrate the various perspectives on organizations. Are there some perspectives that fit more comfortably within an evolutionary
Recall the three research design issues raised in Chapter 2: choice of unit of analysis, definition of novelty, and selection biases. To what extent do you think these will affect empirical work
Consider your own views on the issue of theoretical pluralism in organizational studies. Is this a sign of intellectual vitality in the field? Or a major impediment to theoretical accumulation and
Choose a recent journal article on some aspect of organizational change and identify if the authors used one of the six perspectives we discussed in this chapter. If yes, to what extent does the
How does the approach employed by students of organizational culture differ from that employed by students of organizational knowledge and routines?
An emphasis on procedural knowledge or the subjective perceptions of organizational members implies a conception of organizational forms that is reducible to the cognitive and affective processes of
Under what internal and environmental conditions is structural inertia a desirable property of organizations? Under what conditions is structural inertia an undesirable property?
Recent interest in organizational transformation has emphasized the ‘cascades’ of change in other attributes and units that may be set off by an initial transformation (Hannan et al., 2003).
Albert Hirschman (1972) described ‘exit’ and ‘voice’ as two basic strategies that members and external stakeholders could use to transform unresponsive organizations. When are members and
Describe previous transformations in the organization you have chosen for analysis in Chapters 4 to 6. To what extent have the goals, boundaries, and/or activities of the organization been affected?
To what extent can an evolutionary approach treat ‘external’ selection processes as being truly exogenous? Langton pointed out that Wedgwood helped petition Parliament for the development of a
As managers engage in intentional variation of routines and simultaneously contribute to internal selection criteria, the line between ‘variation’ and ‘selection’ can become ambiguous. What
Perrow (1985) criticized Langton’s study for ignoring the social costs of bureaucracy, such as the coercion and exploitation of workers. Can an evolutionary perspective be applied to understand –
Develop your own critique of Langton’s case study, emphasizing the three issues of research design raised in the chapter – i.e. unit of analysis, definition of novelty, and selection biases.
Pick an organization in which you participate, e.g. as an employee, volunteer, or student.Identify some of the evolutionary mechanisms that allow the organization’s practices to persist from week
Using each of the three interpretations of ‘routines,’ identify some routines in the organization you chose for #1 and design a research project to document them.
The contrast between users and supporters generates very different images of the conditions under which individuals will offer assistance to one another in the workplace. For the user orientation,
The appearance and disappearance of idiosyncratic jobs calls attention to organizational jobs as possible units of variation, selection, and retention. What theoretical and methodological advantages
Our discussion of membership models has primarily focused on the perspective of founders/managers seeking to maintain organizational boundaries. Review the models shown in Tables 5.2 and 5.3 from the
Consider the issue of membership boundaries in the formal organization you selected for analysis in Chapter
Many studies of organizations are either cross-sectional in character or only address relatively short time periods, thereby missing the early years of organizations or organizational populations.
The effects of age, period, and cohorts can be divided further into contemporaneous effects, which pertain to the impact of conditions on an organization at a given point in time, and imprinted
In this chapter, we have emphasized the impact of social context on organizational change, assessed through historical time ‘clocks’. Another type of ‘clock’ that could be linked to
What age, period and cohort effects have played an especially important role in the development of the formal organization you have analyzed in previous chapters?
Mechanisms supporting the development of new populations – such as learning, cognitive legitimation, and sociopolitical legitimation – are often hard to measure empirically. To what extent can
The concept of path-dependence reminds us that we must be on guard against viewing existing dominant designs in a population as having the best ‘fit’. Using the variation-selectionretention
The examination of mechanisms leading to the emergence of new populations is often premised on the assumption that diversity in organizational arrangements produces desirable outcomes for society as
Discuss what you know about ‘pioneer’ organizations that served as early instances within this organizational population. Who were the key entrepreneurs involved in those organizations?Describe
Describe the historical processes that created the population. To what extent did pioneer organizations collaborate (or compete) for the sake of resource mobilization? Were there scientific,
Pick a population you know well. What strategies can organizations or organizational populations use to reduce cross-population effects that have negative consequences for them?
Assume that we apply the term robust communities to describe patterns of interdependencies among organizational populations that are highly resistant to change over time. What characteristics would
Using the principles of entrepreneurial networking from Chapter 4, explain how the patterns of ecological nestedness in Figure 11.1 might occur. Consider what community characteristics affecting
Consider the community context of the organizational population you have analyzed in Chapters 9 and 10.Describe the interdependencies of the population with other organizational forms. Do these
Conduct fieldwork in your local community to determine which organizational populations seem over- and under-represented. Use concepts and principles from this chapter to explain your findings.