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Recent theory and research have reconceptualized categories in markets and in other settings as part of the languages developed to characterize roles in a producer-audience interface. An important development in this work is the characterization of memberships in producer categories and in audiences as potentially partial. Producers often are regarded as members in a category to varying degrees, and audience members share to varying degrees in consensus about the applicability and meanings of category labels. Such partiality gives rise to fuzziness in boundaries, which has implications for the emergence and persistence of categories. A fast-developing literature has explored these implications empirically.

Intro -- Contents -- Preface -- Part I Theory -- 1 Organizations and Social Structure -- Organizational Diversity -- Perspectives on Organizational Change -- The Demography and Ecology of Organizations -- Population Thinking -- Evolution of Organizational Forms -- Dynamic and Comparative Analysis -- 2 Theoretical Background -- Organization Theory and Sociology: Missing Connections -- Comparison of Contemporary Approaches -- Controversies and Misunderstandings -- Managerial Implications and Applications -- 3 Boundaries of Forms and Populations -- Approaches to Defining Forms -- A Focus on Boundaries -- Boundary Dynamics and Diversity -- Implications for Research -- 4 Structural Inertia and Organizational Change -- Structural Inertia -- A Hierarchy of Inertial Forces -- Variations in Strength of Inertia -- 5 Competition and the Niche -- The Principle of Isomorphism -- The Niche -- Classical Competition Theory -- Niche Overlap and Competition -- 6 Modeling the Dynamics of Organizational Populations -- Variations in Intrinsic Founding Rates -- Effects of Environments on Carrying Capacities -- Conceptualizing the Size of Populations -- Carrying Capacities and Density Dependence -- Rate Dependence and Diversity Dependence -- Dynamics of Selection -- Part II Methods -- 7 Designs of Empirical Studies -- Defining Events -- National Labor Unions -- Semiconductor Merchant Producers -- Newspaper Publishers in San Francisco -- Comparison of Data Sets -- 8 Models and Methods of Analysis -- Describing Organizational Histories -- Models for Transition Rates -- Counting Process Models -- Estimation and Testing -- Part III Empirical Findings -- 9 The Population Ecology of Founding and Entry -- Core Questions -- Founding Rates of Labor Unions -- Entry Rates of Semiconductor Manufacturing Firms -- Founding Rates of Newspaper Firms -- Comparisons and Contrasts.

In recent years, there has been an increasing emphasis within organizational ecology on identity as a fundamental basis for the conceptualization and identification of organizational forms. This paper highlights the benefits of an identity-based conceptualization of organizational forms and outlines an identity-based agenda for organizational ecology. We begin by discussing fundamental properties of organizational identity, drawing extensively from the formal-theoretical conceptualization proposed by Pólos et al. (2002). We then build on this foundation by proposing a number of systematic ways in which forms can be specified and differentiated in terms of identity. We also address the challenge of measuring forms by discussing various approaches researchers may use to assess the beliefs contemporaneous audiences hold regarding organizational identities. This paper concludes with a discussion of research questions revolving around three issues core to an ecological approach to organizations: (1) the emergence of identities, (2) the persistence of identities, and (3) the strategic trade-offs among different types of identities.

Der vorliegende Aufsatz plädiert für die Anwendung der modernen Populationsökologie zur Erforschung von Organisation-Umwelt-Beziehungen. Die zentrale Frage ist dabei: Warum gibt es so viele Arten von Organisationen? Die ökologische Frage eröffnet die Möglichkeit, zur Analyse der Effekte der Umweltvarianz auf organisatorische Strukturen eine Vielzahl formaler Modelle einzusetzen. Die Autoren zeigen, daß die Strukturen von Organisationen starken "Trägheitszwängen" unterworfen sind, die sowohl aus internen Arrangements (etwa interner Politik) als auch der Umwelt entstammen (zum Beispiel der öffentlichen Legitimation organisatorischer Tätigkeiten). Die strukturelle Trägheit von Organisationen wird weiterhin in Abhängigkeit von Alter, Größe und Komplexität der Organisation untersucht und letztendlich als Folge eines Selektionsprozesses begriffen. (pmb)