Organization-Environment Relations

ORGANIZATION-ENVIRONMENT RELATIONS: THE POPULATION ECOLOGY

In general, the ecological perspective is a theory of organizations which can best be understood as a specific theoretical model that can be classified in one of the four basic fields of organizational science. According to Vecchio (1991), these four fields can be distinguished based on their level of analysis and their primary orientation using the following graphic depiction:

Level of Analysis

Primary Orientation Micro Macro

Conceptual Organizational Behavior Organizational Theory

Application Human Resources Organizational Development

As can be seen from the above graph, organizational theory is a macro approach to the organizational sciences which is to say that it attempts to develop theoretical or conceptual models of organization that apply to widely diverse kinds of firms. The basic focus of an organizational theory, Vecchio (1991) reports, is upon organizational attributes, e.g., organizational goals, technology, culture, climate, and so froth.

The purpose of this report is to define, describe, and examine the theory of the population ecology of organizations as well as to review the empirical research based on the theory. To this end, the presented review delineates the theory of population ecology and discusses its relationship to other more traditional organizational theories. This discussion includes the s

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vival but also providing evidence that key constituencies consider the organizations' activities appropriate. It was noted that the media do not control such resources, but influence those who do. Hybels then created variables that simultaneously represented legitimation and delegitimation. As an independent variable to explain the founding rate of DBFs, Hybels (1994) subtracted the number of articles with negative implications for DBFs from the number of positive articles that had been published up until each monthly observation. A dependent variable was created representing the legitimation process itself; this was obtained by subtracting the number of negative articles from the number of positive articles published each month. All analyses used negative binomial regression with lagged regressors. The effects of the cumulative legitimacy variable to density were compared in a standard population ecology model predicting the founding rate. Results demonstrated predictive validity for the content analysis technique and were said to generally support ecological theory. Foundings were a positive function of legitimacy. With legitimacy controlled, however, density's effect became entirely negative. Based on findings, Hybels

Category: Business - O