For organizations, as for living creatures, existence cannot be taken for granted. In nature,
eggs are not fertilized, pregnancies fail, and would-be offspring are stillborn. The …

The intellectual tension between questions of stability and questions of change permeate
the social sciences in general and organizational theory in particular. After a substantial …

The case study has a long and honorable tradition in many profes sional disciplines but, with
a few exceptions such as Festinger, Reicken, and Schacter (1964) and Keckhoff and Back …

Rather quietly over the last decade, a large body of literature has emerged to consider how
new forms of organization arise and become established in the organizational community …

Much of the social science literature on institutions resembles a play that begins with the
second act, taking both plot and narrative as an accomplished fact. very little research asks …

This paper summarizes some of the most important findings of a longitudinal study of the
birth and early development of an innovative organization. Paradoxically, those features of …

The twenty chapters in this volume represent extremely divergent styles of research-from
computer simulations (Mezias and Lant) to detailed case studies (Van de Ven and Garud) …

" Why are there so many kinds of organizations?" Hannan and Freeman (1977: 936) posed
this question in their seminal article on population ecology. Essentially they are asking why …

In Chapter 2.1 Lex Donaldson (Chapt. 1.20) stoutly defends the achievements and
possibilities of organizational rationality. An unabashed contin-gency theorist, he cuts a …

Since the Brittain and Wholey and Hannan and Freeman comments make similar points, I
shall deal with them together. Hannan and Freeman have written a new essay rather than …