Organizational ecology

Organizational ecology (also organizational demography and the population ecology of organizations) is a theoretical and empirical approach in the social sciences that is considered a sub-field of organizational studies. Organizational ecology utilizes insights from biology, economics,[1] and sociology, and employs statistical analysis to try to understand the conditions under which organizations emerge, grow, and die.

The ecology of organizations is divided into three levels, the community, the population, and the organization. The community level is the functionally integrated system of interacting populations. The population level is the set of organizations engaged in similar activities. The organization level focuses on the individual organizations (some research further divides organizations into individual member and sub-unit levels[2]).

What is generally referred to as organizational ecology in research is more accurately population ecology, focusing on the second level.[3]

  1. ^ Douma, Sytse and Hein Schreuder, 2013. "Economic Approaches to Organizations". 5th edition. London: Pearson [1] ISBN 0273735292 • ISBN 9780273735298
  2. ^ Hannan, M., & Freeman, J. (1977). The population ecology of organizations. American Journal of Sociology 82(5), 929–964.
  3. ^ Baum, J., & Shipilov, A. (2006). Ecological approaches to organizations. In S. Clegg, C. Hardy, T. Lawrence, & W. Nord (Eds.) The Sage handbook of organization studies (pp. 55–110.) London: Sage Publications.