We discuss the creation of organizations and their survival as distinct selection processes, and consider the significance of their divergence. In particular, to understand the implications of entrepreneurial booms, we propose the possibility of asymmetric selection, where entry selection and...

We synthesize organization learning theory and organizational ecology to predict systematic patterns in the founding and growth of organizations over time. Our central argument is that competition triggers organizational learning, which in turn intensifies competition that again triggers an...

Salient successes and failures among organizations, such as spectacular venture capital investments or agonizing bankruptcies, affect consensus beliefs about the viability of particular markets. We argue that such vital events lead to over-reactions in the organizational entry process, with new...

Research across disciplines presumes that market categories will have strong boundaries. Categories without well-defined boundaries typically are not useful so are expected to fade away. We suggest many contexts contain lenient market categories, or less-constraining market categories, that...

Why do successful organizations often move in new directions and then fail? We propose that this pattern is especially likely among organizations that have survived a history of competition. Such experience adapts organizations to their environment, through so-called "Red Queen" evolution, but...

Periods of social and political change often are marked by struggles among competing ideologies. Given the importance of formal organizatons to such struggles, we propose that competitions among ideologies can be understood and modeled as an ecology of organizations. In this spirit, we develop a...

Various industries are marked by rapid technological change and increasingly global competition. We explain how such developments provide a context for "Red Queen" competition, where organizational learning and competition accelerate each other over time. Arguing that competition stimulates...

There’s a scene in Lewis Carroll’s <i>Through the Looking Glass</i> in which the Red Queen, having just led a chase with Alice in which neither seems to have moved from the spot where they began, explains to the perplexed girl: "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."...

This paper describes a dynamic analysis of technological advances among hard disk drive (HDD) manufacturers in the areal density of their products across the history of the industry. The study provides (additional) evidence supporting a view of technological racing with leap-frogging rather than...

Why do successful organizations often move in new directions and then fail? We propose that this pattern is especially likely among organizations that have survived a history of competition. Such experience adapts organizations to their environment, through so-called "Red Queen" evolution, but...