Ecology and Strategy
Advances
in Strategic Management · Volume
23 (2006)
Joel A.C. Baum, Stanislav D. Dobrev
and Arjen van Witteloostuijn, Editors
The
dominant view in strategic management emphasizes the adaptation of individual organizations
to changing competitive and environmental circumstances. From this perspective, strategy is about the
alignment (and realignment) of internal strengths and weaknesses with external
opportunities and threats, which requires organizational learning and
change. Supporting this view are vast
literatures on organizational learning and change, and the types of strategies
related to above-normal performance under particular circumstances. The crux of this perspective on strategy is
that organizational flexibility is
associated with superior performance.
The
dominant logic in organizational ecology in contrast, emphasizes adaptation
through environmental selection at the population or industry level, rather
than by individual organizations.
Ecological approaches embody a sociological framework of organization
theories emphasizing evolutionary dynamics that favor structurally inert organizations.
Inertia is not only a survival-enhancing feature, but also a by-product
of prior success and a consequence
of selection. Ecological studies have
amassed evidence that organizational change, which disrupts inertia, is often
associated with diminished performance, including failure. Thus, ecological accounts of strategy
associate organizational inertia with
superior performance.
This
volume tackles these contradictory views of the performance-enhancing effects
of organizational flexibility and inertia head on, and in doing so, contributes
to the development of theory and empirical evidence at the interface of
strategy management and organizational ecology.
In addition to the inertia-flexibility puzzle, the volume explores
additional connections between ecological and adaptationist approaches to
strategy, including the relationships between
- ecological
models of organizational niches, niche location and niche packing and
strategic management theories of firm scope, market position and
competition
- ecological
perspectives on organizational forms and identities and research on
strategic groups and mobility barriers
- ecological
models of resource partitioning and the evolution of new market segments
and strategic models of industry consolidation and threats of new entry.
This
volume thus seeks to bring strategic and ecological perspectives closer
together to join forces for further theory development in areas of mutual
interest. By creating a forum for
discussing key issues at the hearts of both strategy and ecology, we aim to
provide a compendium that contributes to the cross-fertilization of these
perspectives and acts as a catalyst for future research at this important
interface.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Ecology versus
Strategy or Strategy and Ecology?
Stanislav D. Dobrev, Arjen van Witteloostuijn and Joel A.C. Baum
Entrepreneurship
Boom and Bust: The Effect of Entrepreneurial Inertia on
Organizational Populations
Martin Ruef
Optimal Inertia: When Organizations Should Fail
Nick Dew, Brent Goldfarb and Saras Sarasvathy
Top Management Teams
Top Management Team Composition and Organizational
Ecology: A Nested Hierarchical Selection Theory of Team Reproduction and
Organization Diversity
Christophe Boone, Arjen van Witteloostuijn and Filippo Carlo Wezel
Corporate
Leadership and the Dialogue of Adaptation
Margarethe Wiersema and Thomas P. Moliterno
Organizational Change
Ecology, Strategy
and Organizational Change
Jitendra V. Singh
The Best of Both Worlds: Exploitation and Exploration
in Successful Family Businesses
Danny Miller and Isabelle Le Breton
Organizational Learning
If it doesn’t Kill You: Learning from Ecological Competition
Henrich R. Greve and Huggy Rao
Strategic Renewal as
Improvisation: Reconciling the Tension between Exploration and
Exploitation
Mary
Crossan and David K. Hurst
Technology Strategy
Technology Choice, Transaction Alignment and
Survival: The Impact of Sub-population Organizational Structure
Lyda S. Bigelow
Exploring the Tail of Creativity: An Evolutionary
Model of Breakthrough Invention
Lee Fleming and Mark Szigety
Competitive Strategy
The Competitive Dynamics of Vertical
Integration: Evidence from
Giacomo Negro and Olav
Sorenson
Dynamics of Competitive Repositioning: A Multidimensional Approach
Javier Gimeno, Ming-Jer
Chen and Jonghoon Bae
Cooperative Strategy
Fighting a Common Foe: Enmity, Identity and
Collective Strategy
Jo-Ellen Pozner and Hayagreeva Rao
When do Networks Matter? A Study of Tie formation
and Decay
Scale and Scope Economies in the British Motorcycle
Industry, 1899-1993
Filippo Carlo Wezel and Arjen
van Witteloostuijn
Diversification to
Achieve Scale and Scope: The Strategic Implications of Resource Management for
Value Creation
Tim R. Holcomb, R. Michael Holmes Jr. and Michael A. Hitt
Direct and Indirect Effects of Product Portfolio on
Firm Survival in the Worldwide
Olga M. Khessina
Industry Performance and Changes in Competitor
Characteristics: Evidence on
Isolationism versus Mutual Forbearance
Anita M. McGahan