Niches and Networks Among Voluntary Groups

志愿社团的兴衰是当代一个备受关注的社会问题；然而，理解这种关联存在的原因是社会学理论和研究的一个经典问题。本研究人员建议复制早期对自愿协会及其成员的调查，并在早期NSF资助的数据收集和分析基础上进行重大扩展和改进。他被认为是复杂组织领域中最具创造力和技能的社会学家之一。目前的建议是关于组织的几种理论观点的丰富混合，包括自愿协会之间竞争及其增长和衰落的生态模型，以及一套有吸引力的计划统计分析，适合于收集的数据类型。研究结果应进一步推动PIs自身的累积发展，形成自愿性社团兴衰的动态理论。

The growth and decline of voluntary associations is a contemporary social issue of great concern; yet understanding the reasons for the viability of such associations is a classic concern of sociological theory and research. This investigator proposes to replicate an earlier survey of voluntary associations and their memberships with significant extensions and improvements beyond earlier NSF funded data collection and analysis. He is viewed as one of the most creative and skilled sociologists in the field of complex organization. The present proposal is a rich blend of several theoretical perspectives on organizations, including ecological models of the competition among voluntary associations and of their growth and decline, and an attractive set of planned statistical analyses appropriate to the kind of data to be collected. The results should further the PIs own cumulative development of a dynamic theory of the growth and decline of voluntary associations.